


Feathers

by dalniente



Series: Feathers and Fins [1]
Category: Megamind (2010)
Genre: Alien Biology, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Birds, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Soulmates, megamind with gills, roxanne and minion are queerplatonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:01:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 50,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29256369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dalniente/pseuds/dalniente
Summary: AU in which people receive water birds that will eventually lead them to their soulmates. Or: in which Dal fights depression by focusing really really hard on things that make Dal, specifically, happy. So...angst, feels, Megamind with gills, and a soulmate AU with birds in it!
Relationships: Megamind & Minion, Megamind/Roxanne Ritchi, Metro Man & Roxanne Ritchi, Minion & Roxanne Ritchi
Series: Feathers and Fins [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2148348
Comments: 539
Kudos: 222





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have no explanation for this except that I really, really like birds and I like water (you may have noticed from [gestures vaguely at everything I've written in the past year or so]). I intended this to be a one-shot, like Wake Your Sleepy Soul, with the first half of the fic spanning a lot of time and the second half of the fic being Entirely Feels, but I got close to wrapping up the first draft and checked the word count and went "Aw, crud." 
> 
> I also can't tell if it's any good or not because I started and finished it under the shadow of depression!brain, but y'all know my rallying cry is "fuck it we're doing it live." I hope you like it! Fingers crossed!

When you reach a certain age, you receive a chick. Literally. A baby bird, a water bird or (rarely) a wading bird.

This is considered normal.

The exact timing varies for everyone—soulbirds are part of growing up, which happens at its own pace—but most people's names appear in the Halls of Nested Souls when they're in their early to mid-teens. Their names, and the species of the birds that match their souls and the souls of their mates. Chicks of the most frequently-assigned species are kept on hand in the Halls, with nesting pairs on breeding schedules at locations all over the world. It's rare for a chick to have to be shipped overseas.

Generally speaking, most people receive geese or ducks. Roxanne's mother has a pintail, for example, and her father has a mallard. Ducks and geese are adaptable and agreeable—mostly—and while personalities definitely vary by individual and species, by and large they are well-suited and well-matched to most people.

With that said, exceptions to this rule are far from unheard-of. Just about everyone knows at least a few people with unusual birds. The stereotype is that those who receive such birds tend to lead particularly interesting lives—Marie Skłodowska Curie had a red-necked phalarope and Mary Shelley a grey heron—but of course there's nothing to say someone with a marbled teal couldn't win the Nobel Prize (that was Albert Einstein) or save millions of lives with a snow goose at their side in the virology lab (Jonas Salk).

Roxanne Ritchi's chick comes unusually late. She receives a letter from the Halls, instead, explaining that the few producing pairs of soulbirds in her species are out to sea and won't be back for another two months, and their chicks are currently spoken for, but Roxanne is on the waitlist for next year.

Roxanne is to receive an Atlantic puffin.

* * *

This sends her life on a significant detour from what she had imagined for herself.

Her plan _was_ to graduate high school and then go to college for something in the physical sciences, but that's going to have to be put on hold, obviously. Soulbirds are highly adaptable as adults, but as chicks they thrive best on the standard care for their particular species. So Roxanne reads up on puffins, takes a few deep breaths and stares at the ceiling for a few sleepless nights…and finally decides to just go ahead and skip graduating high school with the rest of her class. She'll get her GED independently at some point.

Both high school and her GED have to go on the back burner for now because she'll likely receive her chick shortly after she turns seventeen, if not before. She needs to have a job or an internship lined up and waiting for her when that happens, because her chick will fledge after only a month or so. Two months, tops. And then—

Her parents argue with her. Puffins are not just water birds; they are seabirds in the extreme sense. Their chicks go to the ocean after fledging and remain there for _years_. This is not feasible, Roxanne's parents insist. This is not the plan. The plan is college. The plan is a career. Roxanne cannot possibly put all of that on hold for the sake of a bird, even if it is her soulbird; is she mad?

Roxanne is indeed mad. She is extremely angry. This is _her bird_ , and her bird has certain needs. Roxanne didn't ask for this, but she is damn well going to make sure her soulbird has what it needs during its formative years when it needs her support the most. How dare her parents try to make her squeeze _her bird_ into _their expectations_. How dare they.

They won't help her throw her life away, they warn her. If she wants to do this, she is on her own in terms of both logistics and funds. Roxanne snaps that this suits her just fine because _clearly_ they can't be trusted to do this the right way at all; she'll do it herself. She has stellar grades and an extracurricular resume that's sure to catch the eye of someone, somewhere, even if she is dropping out of school. She'll be fine.

Her friends raise their eyebrows and tell her hey, good for you, you can do this…but only one of them actually sticks up for her when Roxanne overhears them talking in the row of locker banks one over from hers. "She doesn't have the coursework or the time to graduate early, does she?" "Is she planning on dropping out when her chick comes?" "That's insane. I thought she was going to be valedictorian." "Throwing away her future, it's nuts."

But Kimberly says, no, Roxanne has this in the bag. Roxanne is top of their class for a reason. If she wants to put things on hold for a while, she'll be okay.

(Kimberly is the only friend Roxanne bothers to stay in contact with, later.)

When Roxanne's chick arrives, peeping and hungry and frightened, she has had almost a year to prepare and plan and learn. She has frozen sand eels and herring ready to thaw and feed, and a week later, she tucks her chick into her parka and signs on—as she planned and arranged entirely on her own ( _thanks_ , mom and dad)—with the crew of the _Wayfarer_ , a deep sea stern trawler, modified and fully equipped with facilities for fisheries research in the north Atlantic. The passengers are focusing their efforts on Greenland sharks, tracking and tagging if possible, surveying for a more in-depth understanding of population distribution and abundance than can be offered by exploratory fisheries surveys and bycatch reports.

(Greenland sharks, Roxanne will soon discover, are a fascinating species for several reasons. She learns their name in Kalaallisut, and she learns they can live more than five hundred years. They can be fermented and dried into a really horrible Icelandic delicacy and they are quite large and often swallow their prey whole. And they smell _terrible_.)

The captain of the trawler wants to know why Roxanne is joining up with her crew. It isn't a particularly attractive internship in terms of pay. But her confused expression clears and goes soft when Roxanne shows her the chick, fuzzy ink-black with a soft white tummy, still peeping and hungry but no longer afraid.

"Oh," says the captain, whose name is Ragnheiður but who introduces herself by her surname, Einar. She's older, mid-fifties and a widow, but still quite spry. "I see."

Roxanne thinks she probably does. Einar's soulbird is an Adélie penguin.

* * *

Roxanne spends the next few years at sea. Einar turns out to be a lucky mentor; she takes Roxanne under her proverbial wing and teaches her how to navigate, how to read the ocean, how to abide by the rules of the invisible road when it comes to other watercraft. When Roxanne leaves the _Wayfarer_ at the end of her internship, it is with a lot more knowledge than she had when she came on board, and a much larger bird, whose name, Roxanne has decided, is Pog.

(Years later, when high-speed internet becomes nigh-ubiquitous in her part of the world, she will learn that 'pog' has become a slang term among people on a particular game streaming service, and she will get very very tired of explaining that his name has nothing to do with games or plays and everything to do with the simple fact that he's a puffin. Look at him. _Look_ at him. Look at how he walks. What else is there to name a puffin?)

("Lundi," Einar will say, when Roxanne complains to her about this.)

("I told you, I'm not just naming him _puffin_ in Icelandic," Roxanne will insist.)

(And Einar will shrug, and drag on her cigar, and say, "Better than Pog, and you asked," and Roxanne will groan and Einar will laugh at her.)

When possible, Einar keeps her appraised of opportunities so that Roxanne can stay on the ocean with her bird as much as she can. One winter when no sea-work is available, Roxanne manages to find a lighthouse off the coast of Maine in need of a keeper for the season. She goes there and lives rent-free for six months, repairing fishing nets for money to buy food while she studies as best she can for the SATs she's still hoping to take. Her parents are, at least, willing to foot the bill for these.

Pog comes back to land a few times, but he mostly stays away, swimming and hunting and growing and just generally being a young puffin. Roxanne spends her free time either bored out of her skull or teaching herself to play the mandolin, because there really is not much else to do in a lighthouse when you've finished tying off your nets. She has biweekly trips into town on a boat owned by an elderly man named Wimbledon who comes to pick her up for groceries and to drop off and pick up nets and offer something like a social interaction.

Wimbly is nice, as far as elderly men go, but Roxanne wants to scream by the end of the third month. She is not cut out for this life. She misses the _news_.

That throws her for a loop. She was not expecting to miss news. But seriously, what is going on in the world? She doesn't know! It's annoying!

Roxanne decides, halfway through month four when the mandolin-blisters on her fingers are finally turning into calluses, that she is going to be a reporter. Physics is neat, but she doesn't ache for it the way she aches to know what's happening. She is going to surround herself with news and she will _never be bored again_ , goddammit; six months is enough.

She does get pretty good on the mandolin, at least.

Still, even with the stinky sharks and the boring lighthouse, Roxanne can't regret any of her experiences. Her GED is easy enough, and her phone calls home gradually become less terse as her parents adjust and realize their daughter is not backing down or coming home anytime soon. And she is learning so much, and meeting so many people! Except for the stint in the lighthouse, she's having fun.

She dates casually, people whose birds are gulls or grebes or cormorants. It's not unusual, in this world where humans have soulmates and soulbirds. There are those who frown on dating, but the fact is, the length of time between receiving your soulbird and meeting your soulmate varies wildly from person to person. No one knows why. Some people never meet their soulmate. Sometimes they do, and it doesn't work out between them even with the soulbond.

The stories, the romances, the songs in this world—the ideal is to meet young and marry immediately. Soulmates, soulmates, of course it must work out! Of course! It must!

But life, alas, is a complicated thing. People are complicated. Commitment is easier and relationships more certain in this world where soulbonds are the norm, but nothing is ever guaranteed.

So, some people aren't willing to wait, and others don't want any truck with it. Roxanne doesn't put a whole lot of store by the starry-eyed 'soulmates are _special_ ' narrative, but she does hope she meets hers. Nearly everyone does, eventually. But in the meantime, she doesn't see anything wrong with a bit of relationship experience ahead of time. It'll only make things easier, right?

She only falls for one of the people she dates—Carlie—and she does not tell them she loves them. She's still processing her feelings when Carlie meets their soulmate, only a week or so after Roxanne realizes.

The breakup is amicable, but Roxanne escapes to a different vessel and a different crew, the first chance she gets. Roxanne is happy for Carlie, she truly is. She just…hurts, too. It would have been nice for Carlie to stand by her, to open the relationship up when their soulmate entered the picture instead of cutting Roxanne off. Roxanne would have happily welcomed the newcomer. And it isn't unheard-of for a person to want to stay with the partner they love instead of throwing it all away for the sake of an unknown soulbond. It—would have been nice. To stay. Carlie was her best friend, her Polaris. To lose them—feels—it feels like Roxanne has lost her anchor-chain. Roxanne is nineteen and happy for her ex but grieving for her own heart, and she spends more than one evening crying into Pog's dark feathers while he clacks his bill and nuzzles her face.

Carlie was worth it, though. Worth the heartbreak to know them, laugh with them, even if it was only for a little while. Roxanne ships out again with Einar a couple summers later, and she watches her blunt, straightforward captain dance in shy circles around one of the older scientists on board the vessel, and she thinks—yeah. Worth it. To love, and lose, and someday love again. Roxanne will love again, she's sure.

Hopefully not until her soulmate, though. She'd rather this not be a frequent thing.

And she has to wonder, lying in her berth at night, who on _earth_ her soulmate is, that she would have a puffin for a soulbird. Carlie's bird was a fairy tern and their soulmate had a magellanic penguin; they are both seafarers to their marrow.

Because the thing about soulbirds is, they aren't just reflections of your own soul. They share qualities with your soulmate, as well. And Roxanne always enjoyed the beach when she was growing up, yes, but she doesn't love it _this much_. Not enough to make this her life, the way her crewmates are doing with their gulls and penguins and pelicans. Roxanne can feel herself falling in love with the ocean, but she is still very much looking forward to living on dry land again. The seafaring thing must be her soulmate's quality.

A marine biologist, maybe? Roxanne tends to be attracted to stimulating conversation and personality before she notices anything physically, though she certainly does appreciate striking features; she can't really see herself living out her days as a fisherman's wife.

"Maybe if your fisherman is also a mechanical engineer," Kimberly says, when Roxanne expresses this to her via text.

"Lol," Roxanne replies.

Seriously, though. A puffin?

* * *

Six years after Pog turns Roxanne's life on its head, the two of them move back inland. Pog gets restless, starts spending more time with Roxanne onboard or on land, and Roxanne figures it's time to move on and maybe get her life back on some kind of track. Eventually, Pog will lead her to her soulmate. He displayed zero interest in any of Roxanne's partners at sea.

She goes back home to Lansing for a while, until Pog gets extra-restless and starts showing signs of attempting to lead. Roxanne takes a deep breath, thanks her lucky stars she was only at her parents' house for a couple months and couldn't fight with them enough for them to realize anything that might make them fully disown her, and prepares to head east or west.

Pog guides Roxanne north, instead. This is…unexpected.

Still, Roxanne follows where her soulbird leads her, traveling on her bicycle with a backpack and a tent. Her parents think she is insane for traveling this way. Roxanne, you're basically homeless; Roxanne, you need a car; Roxanne, you need a mailing address, no a PO box is not good enough; Roxanne—

Roxanne could not care less. She manages just fine on her own, as she always has. She has a couple near misses on the road with other travelers, but she picked up some interesting skills when she was hopping around on fishing and research boats. This is steady footing and Roxanne can throw a solid punch in a half-storm on the high sea; she knocks the annoying guy with the mismatched Timberland hiking boots clean out.

She's proud of herself for that, although her hand hurts for a few days after.

She can't say she's sorry when she winds up matriculating at Metro University. MU wouldn't have been her first choice, but its programs and degree offerings are solid, and Roxanne can't argue with the scholarship they give her. Her parents are relieved and actually seem proud of her, which is…nice? Roxanne isn't sure what to make of that and she knows it'll evaporate when they learn what she's majoring in, but it's whatever. She hasn't put much store by her parents' opinions of her since they tried to make her keep a puffin inland.

(Seriously? Seriously! She's still upset about that conversation, when she thinks of it.)

And Pog, thank god, doesn't seem to mind the move. He's old enough now that Roxanne no longer needs to live exclusively by her soulbird's needs, but if he was understimulated or seemed depressed, of course she would move back to the coast. She doesn't think highly of the people who wind up on the reality shows asking what to do for their birds, when the answer is obviously 'don't expect a flamingo to subsist on duck food, you dipshit.'

Thankfully, though, soulbirds don't have the same drives as regular birds of their species as adults. Not unless two of the same species end up together. Pog seems happy enough in Metro, and Roxanne is pretty sure she isn't going to have another puffin in her life. For one thing, the only other puffin she's heard of is in Texas and Roxanne has no plans to go south. For another…she loves the ocean, truly she does, but she is still bound and determined to be a reporter.

Whoever her soulmate is had better have some kind of freshwater fowl, or she's going to cry.

But for now, she is happy. She graduates early with flying colors, and she lands a wonderful internship that should put her on the fast track towards permanent employment at one of the major news stations downtown. And Metro City certainly has enough to report on! Somehow it managed to acquire both a superhero and a supervillain in the past few years while Roxanne wasn't paying attention. Between the super activity, the thriving organized crime, and the various usual goings-on of a city of three million, there's no shortage of news to be had.

* * *

The kidnappings are a surprise.

* * *

Probably she should have stuck with physics. Maybe then she wouldn't have attracted the attention of an extraterrestrial supervillain. Or maybe she would have attracted his attention for reasons that could actually lead to something interesting! A collaboration or something, instead of _tied to a chair and used as bait_. 

At least Minion seems nice. And Roxanne does get a front-row seat to Metro City's surprisingly routine Doomsday Plot du Jour, which is cool and means she gets to heckle Megamind from the sidelines. That's always good for a laugh, though she has to wonder when he'll stop looking so surprised that she's willing to engage with him in repartee despite her obvious and very vocal displeasure at being used as a pawn.

He gets weirdly upset when she calls him out on his sloppy welds, several kidnappings in. "Below the belt," he says, scowling hard at her, then scowling even harder when she rolls her eyes.

"I'm not sparring, I'm telling you. It's shoddy work." Roxanne once saw a fishing boom snap clean off at the base because it wasn't welded properly; she is _not interested_ in being anywhere near Megamind's spinning contraption when the internal stresses rip it into three pieces mid-battle.

She tells him so, and he scoffs at her, flopping his arms for dramatic effect. "It is not going to _rip apart_ ," he says, in a tone of affront. "The joins are perfectly sound!"

"Maybe from where you're standing," Roxanne snaps, leaning away from the machine and eyeing it with deep suspicion, "but I'm seeing visible cracks from my vantage."

"You are trying to get me to come over so you can kick me in the shins again," he accuses, pointing at her with a leather-covered finger. "It's not going to work a third time."

"I'm not interested in your shins, I just don't want to get decapitated," Roxanne says. "It'll throw your whole timeline off and put a serious crimp in my plans for the weekend, not that you haven't already done that." She turns in her seat and smiles up at the much smaller of her captors, aiming her shoulder at Megamind so he knows she's ignoring him now. "Minion?" she says. "Would you take a look at this for me, please?"

Megamind scoffs again, grumbling loudly about "oh _Minion_ gets _please-and-thank-you_ ed, oh how nice," but Roxanne ignores him and Minion smiles and nods and approaches as if he doesn't hear anything at all. He crouches down, then tips his little body up and around to inspect the machine aligned with Roxanne's neck.

"See?" she says, after a moment. "Cracks."

Minion hums. "I'm afraid it does look…iffy, Sir," he announces. "And remember I was worried about the quality from that new supplier? You'd better come and look."

Megamind's offended scowl fades, shifts into more of a concerned frown. He stalks forward, spins on his heel—

—anyone who didn't already know how he moves would probably think he was going into a backflip, but he just catches the edge of his machine with the tips of his fingers and peers at the join upside-down for a couple seconds. Apparently he is completely unbothered by the fact that his spine is bent double, backwards.

"Well?"

Megamind straightens. "I'll be damned."

"Told you," says Roxanne, satisfied, and kicks him in the shins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this chapter is the one most heavy on the exposition and Fun Facts About Birds, so if you're like "idk how much more of this I can take," don't worry, you're already over the hump!


	2. Chapter 2

Megamind does not expect to receive a soulbird at all, as a child. He's an alien, so is Minion. Neither of them has any expectation of a soulmate; how could they possibly warrant such a thing? This planet barely even recognizes them as people.

The planet recognizes them just fine, it turns out. It's the humans they meet who are the problem.

Both Megamind and Minion receive their chicks late. They receive letters instead, explaining that there are currently no chicks in their particular species but breeding pairs are being sought; they will receive their birds as soon as possible. Megamind doesn't say so, because Minion is terribly excited, but he's pretty sure the letters are fake. Either a mean joke from someone at school or a well-intentioned lie from one of their uncles who can't bear to watch them lose the hope Megamind does his best to feign.

"Maybe Minion is my soulbird," Megamind says cheerfully, at breakfast, when the subject comes up yet again. "You don't know. Maybe at home he would have been a flying fish."

"Me, Sir?" Minion grins back. "Me? Maybe you're mine! Which of us has a gizzard, Sir? Remind me?"

Megamind laughs and elbows him, laughs harder when Minion elbows back.

And he shoves his face against his pillow after lights-out, gritting his teeth and reminding himself that hope is first cousin to pain.

The letters—

But he wants them to be real. He wants them to be real so badly.

Either way, he and Minion will prepare as though they are. To hope is to hurt, but what else can they do? Better to hope than to be caught unprepared with soulchicks. They buy an old power plant on the outskirts of town and set up shop there. They've been meaning to establish a real base of operations one of these days, anyway; it might as well be now.

His uncles clap him on the back and laugh, exclaim how proud they are that he is growing up and moving out and already buying property under an assumed name. They'll miss him. Hey, but he'll come and visit, of course! They taught him well.

"You know you have a soul," Guduza says, as Megamind sits on the floor of his cell and strokes the brilliant-green feathers of his uncle's pygmy goose. "Whether or not your bird comes."

Megamind smiles thinly and doesn't reply.

* * *

The letters are not a joke.

Minion's soulbird comes first, fin-winged and dopey-looking. A "fuzzy gray football" of a bird, his Uncle Mitch says when he finally manages to stop laughing long enough to speak. He is not wrong.

Minion loves his penguin as fiercely as he can, which is _extremely_. He cannot do what this chick needs, cannot leave Metro for the Antarctic. But Minion, like Roxanne, has had time to plan, and what he _can_ do is set up an impressive habitat for his soulbird in one of the sublevels of their brand-new Evil Lair. He has this waiting and ready to go when Laramie arrives.

(He also has the San Diego zoo and the Monterey Bay Aquarium on speed-dial; both establishments have help centers for people with high-needs birds.)

(This is not Minion's first rodeo when it comes to looking after a high-needs aquatic bird, but he never says this in so many words. He's amused when he thinks of it, but Sir would be terribly offended.)

* * *

Megamind receives his chick a few months later. She, too, is fuzzy and gray, but she has a long neck and she is, against all the odds, goose-shaped. This is the first time, the _first time_ in Megamind's life that the universe has done anything normal for him. His soulbird is a swan, not a goose, but Megamind has known one or two other people with swans. That's fine. That's actually some degree of normal.

The other students at school do not bother his chick. Megamind is young and seething with rage and he has already made his reputation at school as a ruthless son of a bitch; his classmates and his teachers are under no illusions as to what will happen if any harm comes to his soulbird.

Megamind knows there is talk of abuse. Talk that he is hurting his bird. Of course he's hurting her; he's fucking sadistic. Everyone knows that.

He does his best to ignore the whispers. He keeps Blanche close inside his collar and strokes her fuzzy feathers, holds her in his hands and then his lap as she grows larger. Holds himself aloof and proud and does not feed the rumor mill.

* * *

Wayne Scott receives an albatross, because of course he does. His chick comes right on time, perfectly on his sixteenth birthday. She is an enormous, ungainly creature with suspicious eyes and a long, curved beak; Wayne is pretty sure he's supposed to feel embarrassed about this. He is, right? This is embarrassing, he's sure of it. Wayne himself is not small, but this thing is ridiculous.

Most people at school tell him his chick is striking and unique and looks terribly distinguished. Megamind tells him it looks like an angry muppet.

Privately, Wayne is inclined to agree with him.

He does his best not to show it, but he truly wishes he had received something simpler, more standard. A goose, a duck. Hell, even a swan would be more normal than this thing. Wayne is intensely envious of Megamind's sweet-looking cygnet, who tucks herself quietly in the collar of his shirt and somehow never poops on him. Wayne's albatross bites him at every opportunity and shits everywhere and this was not what Wayne imagined for himself at all.

He names her Rime, because what the fuck else do you name an albatross.

But Rime does cuddle, as well as bite, and it isn't as though she can hurt Wayne when she bites him. And she cheeps at him, and she needs him. Wayne is used to being "needed," but not like this, and Rime's hungry cheeping makes his heart squeeze. He does love her, even if his angry little dryer-lint muppet isn't what he was hoping for.

And he has to admit, she is gorgeous as an adult. Her wings and body are a soft gray gradient and she has a bright golden-orange stripe down the center of her bill, and she can stay in flight nearly as long as Wayne can. She is perfect for Metro Man.

The two of them do, eventually, warm up to each other.

* * *

Blanche is not the kind of swan Megamind was expecting. Probably he should have read his letter a little closer, but he was so relieved to see _Cygnus_ that his vision blurred and he thought _oh thank god_ and he barely saw the rest of it, did not think to look up _Cygnus aratus_ , specifically. He probably would have, if his uncle Niko did not also have a swan, but he does, so why does Megamind need to look up care and keeping? He'll be fine. Nearly every swan assigned is a trumpeter or tundra; their needs are close enough that Megamind isn't worried.

Blanche does not get white feathers as she grows. She stays gray, and it isn't the silver-gray of a tundra or trumpeter swan, either. Her fledge-feathers come in the color of burned charcoal, a sort of dusty, mottled gray, and her bill turns a weird shade of pink.

Megamind is convinced he has done something wrong, fed her wrong or denied her some developmental necessity. She seems happy enough, but this _cannot possibly_ be healthy. This cannot be right. The whispers at school intensify, and someone says _experimentation_ , and Megamind wants to—to scream. Or cry. Potentially both.

Definitely both.

He does neither. He holds his bird and pets her and loves her with every inch and ounce of his soul, and worries himself sick, looking up diseases and genetic disorders of swans and finding nothing.

Until there is a substitute teacher for calculus one day, an old man with thick white hair and thick glasses who takes one look at Blanche and exclaims, "Oh! A black swan! Oh, I don't think I've ever seen someone with one of those. Well done," which leaves Megamind rattled for more reasons than one. But the important one, the one that doesn't hurt or make him sick with fury think about, is—

A black swan? A _black_ swan. Swans can be black?

The old man doesn't sound like he's mocking, but Megamind leaves class with Blanche and sneaks into the library, where he flips through the encyclopedia to—

—okay. Yes. Blanche is a black swan. Native to Australia. Okay.

This is normal, then. The lingering dark gray. This is not a symptom of disease.

Oh thank god.

Okay, so his swan is not really a _normal_ swan, but—she is a swan! This is still some flavor of normal! And Megamind named a black swan _Blanche_ , which is just…wow. Good going, Megamind; well done, indeed. Definitely should have tracked down _C. aratus_ specifically before settling on that as a name.

He changes her name to Odile. Secretly a black swan all along, ho ho. What else is he supposed to name her? Besides, it's a lovely name.

Still, this is. _So_ much better than Megamind could have hoped. He comes home to Evil Lair after school and drops onto his knees to hug his bird (she is enormous and quite social with him and Minion, wonderful for hugging, but Megamind does not dare show this level of affection publicly) and stroke her beautiful feathers and tell her, as he always does but _finally_ without the fear that she's sick somehow or dying, how very very beautiful she is. She witters and clicks her bill at him, whistle-warbling softly; Megamind witters and clicks back, weak with relief.

* * *

Odile stays curled under his desk while he is in class, and she fluffs her feathers and flares her wings and lunges beautifully at anyone who gets too close to Megamind. She is not shy about biting.

You would think her protectiveness would quell the rumors that he hurts her.

It doesn't.

* * *

Minion's penguin grows into a dapper little thing, still more or less football-shaped but jet-black above and snow-white below, with curious silvery eyes that match his inquisitive nature. He is an adorable little troublemaker; Evil Lair is never boring when Laramie is out and about.

Odile is, without question, the most beautiful creature Megamind has ever seen when she gains her adult plumage. Black feathers with a golden-brown iridescence, strangely curly on the folded wings, bright scarlet bill and eyes. And her primaries are white, with lovely bars of black near her wrists.

Odile and Laramie get along fabulously, which is wonderful. They have separate habitats of course, because they are vastly different species of bird and there's no way for Odile to spend very long in Laramie's antarctic environment. But Laramie doesn't appear to mind Odile's much warmer, shallower pond, and either way, both birds spend most of their time on or around their bipeds. Laramie has a special pocket on Minion's left shin, and Odile is tall enough to watch what Megamind is doing as he works. She holds wires and things for him when he needs an extra hand.

* * *

At some point, their birds are supposed to lead them to their soulmates. Soulbirds have a sense of navigation for these things. But years pass, and more years pass, and neither Laramie nor Odile shows any indication of anything that might be a leading behavior.

This is fine by Minion, who doesn't typically have good experiences with humans and is happy enough on his own, with his bonded.

But Megamind…

Well. He says he's fine. And he does seem to be okay, increasingly so after he finally graduates high school doesn't have to plunge himself every day into an environment full of people who hate and want to hurt him. But Minion is pretty sure his friend is terribly lonely. He seemed oddly fixated on the possibility of a soulmate for a while after the two of them got their soulbirds, and then—without any warning at all—he went totally silent on the subject. He doesn't normally lose interest so abruptly, not after that level of initial interest.

Minion is not sure what to do about it. He isn't sure he _can_ do anything about it.

It's a shame, but if all this planet could do for them was give them soulbirds…at least they have those. And it is far from unheard-of for some people never to meet their soulmates, although most of those people didn't want that kind of thing in the first place.

But Megamind does want one, Minion is almost certain. He smiles at Minion when the latter asks and he says _no_ ; he says _you're all I'll ever need, you and our birds and the brainbots_ ; he says _I like our little family_. And he isn't lying, exactly—Minion can tell when he's lying—but his smile is thin. It doesn't reach his eyes. Minion can't trust it.

* * *

At least he seems happy enough when he's scheming. Minion would prefer he choose a less risky line of work, but villainy is engaging and Megamind is reasonably careful about it, so Minion just...keeps him occupied as much as possible. And when Megamind offers the suggestion that they begin to take captives, mix things up a bit, Minion doesn't shoot him down the way he secretly wants to.

He's eventually glad he didn't, of course. It takes a while to find a someone who won't cry or shout abuse or scream at the sight of Minion, but Roxanne ticks all the right boxes and just enough of the wrong ones to be an interesting challenge. Minion _likes_ Roxanne. So does Megamind, which is more of a relief than Minion cares to admit.

So does their asshole arch-nemesis. This is...somewhat less of a relief. Mostly just very irritating.

But.

"Well, Sir," Minion says, when the news breaks that Metro Man and Roxanne Ritchi are, yes, officially dating, "it...certainly does mix things up, you must admit."

"Oh, _shut up_ ," Megamind groans, and Minion snickers and tells him to finish his breakfast. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my family went camping a lot near this one bird sanctuary that had four or so black swans when i was a kid. their wittery whistly bugling haunts my dreams, they are SO pretty and their voices are SO weird. 
> 
> also i really love you guys a lot, i hope you know this! big hug, friends. T^T


	3. Chapter 3

Pog spends his days either snoozing in Roxanne's oversized purse or paddling around in her office building's indoor sanctuary. He is, as always, the only puffin in sight, but Roxanne doesn't receive too many questions about him in her first few months at KCMP; his nonbreeding plumage isn't exactly striking. He looks as though someone swept out a chimney with him.

Pog does not accompany Roxanne on kidnappings. Megamind and Minion leave their birds out of the equation; the only reason Rime helps Wayne with his work is that he has no idea how to stop her. Nobody mentions Roxanne's soulbird, and she doesn't bring him up.

(This is partly because it's considered terribly rude to ask about other people's birds if you don't know them well, but more importantly, she does not want Pog to be a target. The most the public ever knows is that Roxanne's bird is distinctive and she refuses to talk about him. She does, eventually, relax a little bit—hers are not the sort of villains who would take a soulbird and clip its wings or pull out its flight feathers to spite or punish a recalcitrant kidnappee—but Metro is home to other villains on occasion, and Roxanne would prefer not to tempt fate.)

The avian sanctuary at the KCMP building is extensive, much nicer than the ones Roxanne sees in most other offices. KCMP offers a lovely waterfall into a large indoor pond, deep enough for the diving birds and shallow enough for the dabblers, with all manner of feeders refreshed nightly. Some soulbirds stay with their humans, but most come and go as they please throughout the day, and sometimes Pog is missing when Roxanne goes to look for him before she goes home.

He always turns up on her balcony by morning, croaking happily in his door-hinge voice, but she has to wonder where he goes all day. Into the lake, she assumes. He does not care for Hal's green-winged teal _at all_ , and she spends most of her time dabbling at the edges of the KCMP sanctuary. Roxanne doesn't much care for Hal and very much wishes she could fly off into the lake sometimes, so she isn't too terribly bent on keeping Pog where she can see him.

* * *

A few months after Megamind starts kidnapping her, Roxanne has an interview with the hero who's been so faithfully saving her life. It's not her choice, it's her boss's—for the optics, he says. It's comic-book perfection. People are already making Superman and Lois Lane comments; the station would have to be run by a flock of idiots to ignore the opportunity.

The interview is geared as much for Roxanne to get to know Metro Man as it is to give their audience new information, but Roxanne thinks that's ridiculous and goes into it intending to maybe shoot down some hopes and not have to get pushed into more of these.

And it should have been easy: when one of the hero's baby pictures is displayed as a lead in to ask about his childhood (and some intriguing school records Roxanne dug up), Roxanne honestly doesn't have to fake her amusement when she says, "Good _god,_ you were a fugly baby," and laughs.

Metro Man sort of cocks his head, blinking at her—

—and then he smiles a smile she hasn't seen yet and says, "Hey, you wanna grab dinner after this? My treat."

Roxanne thinks

_aw, crap_

but then Roxanne catches herself, and thinks

 _wait—open invitation to society events, good for career—cut down on creeps emailing me—and_ —

— _this will piss Megamind off SO MUCH._

"Sure," she says, sending him a bright, sharp smile. "It's a date."

* * *

Megamind congratulates her on her romantic conquest through what Roxanne is pretty sure are gritted teeth.

"Have to keep life interesting somehow, don't I?" she says. "If you can't deliver, maybe he will."

Megamind goes stiff and flushes pink with embarrassed anger, and he turns on his heel and stalks away to kick off that week's scheme without another word.

Huh. Okay, maybe she should feel a little bit bad about that one. Megamind is the farthest thing from boring, and he is turning out to be amazing for Roxanne's career. She's become a household name almost overnight. Yeah, it would be nice if he would actually ask about her schedule once in a while, but…she probably doesn't have to actually be _mean_ about it.

(Shin-kicking doesn't count as mean, it counts as revenge. Megamind's shins are fair game and he knows it.)

So she yelps. Doesn't scream, won't scream, but she gasps and does her best to really sound alarmed when the flamethrowers start doing their thing. Megamind looks briefly surprised and then sends her a split-second flash of an expression of—

—bewildered gratitude? That's odd. Also, oddly flattering; it means he realized she wouldn't be scared, realized she did that for his benefit.

Why does she even care. Seriously. Roxanne doesn't—Roxanne _doesn't care_ if other people think she's too sharp with them. She doesn't. Especially if those people are _kidnapping her and aiming giant guns at her head_ , oh my god.

It was for her career. Definitely only that. Definitely not because she felt bad about calling the most interesting man she's ever met _boring_ and possibly hurting his feelings when he was already seething about accidentally introducing her to his arch-nemesis. Why would she feel bad about that.

* * *

Pog and Rime get along surprisingly well despite the vast difference in size—Pog isn't even the size of a cat, while Rime's wingspan is close to eight feet when she opens her wings. They bob around on Wayne's indoor habitat, clucking and croaking at each other, and Pog dives around and around and Rime beats her wings at him.

The two birds get along well enough that Roxanne has to wonder, once or twice, if Wayne might be her soulmate. But—he can't be, can he? He becomes a good friend pretty quickly once he drops the I'm-so-great-look-at-me nonsense façade he wears in public, but…Roxanne is almost certain that he's gay. Soulmates rarely cross sexualities that way and Roxanne is definitely sure she isn't trans. And Pog gets along with Rime just fine, but neither of them shows much actual interest in the other; there is no shared preening, the way Roxanne's parents' pintail and mallard preened.

Also, Pog is a _puffin_. He is meant to spend most of his life at sea—not just on the sea, but swimming in it. Wayne does not do water at all, and if Roxanne is sure of anything, it's that her soulmate is an avid beachgoer at the absolute least.

She winds up pretending to date the hero regardless, because he is so deep in the closet that he would need a map to get out and Roxanne has nothing else going on. Honestly, Roxanne is starting to think her soulmate might have died after she reached Metro.

But Wayne is good for her career, and he and Roxanne have the same taste in bad sci-fi channel originals and old horror movies. 'Dating' him is not the worst, and eventually the two of them become a sort of 'model couple for non-soulmates.' Roxanne does feel a little bit bad about that, but—well, what is she supposed to do? Wayne seems happy enough, and breathtakingly relieved that Roxanne doesn't want to go any farther with him than he does with her. He's a decent enough partner, all things considered, even if they are strictly platonic in everything but name.

And if his arch-nemesis is the hottest thing on two legs…what of it? Megamind is an annoying little goober but he fairly dances around his various battlefields, laughing and cartwheeling here-there-everywhere. And the wide, sparkling smile he sometimes shows Roxanne while the two of them are talking (after she stops trying to kick him, after she stops trying to make him upset) is absolutely captivating.

And he gets so deliciously pissy about Roxanne's relationship with Metro Man; it's great. Perfect reminder not to flirt with him too hard.

For now, life is going just fine. Roxanne is happy, even if she is still wildly curious about her soulmate. Are they in Metro City? They must be; Pog hasn't tried to lead her anywhere else. Has Roxanne met them already? Is that why Pog has stopped leading; is it because he thinks his job is done?

But she would know. Pog would bring a friend home. She would meet the other bird, right? That's how it usually goes, right?

"Maybe I'm your soulmate," says Hal, when he overhears her talking about this to Kimberly over the phone on her lunch break. "That'd be poggers, huh?"

"Hal, I swear to god, if you make that pun one more time I am going to poison you," Roxanne says.

* * *

There are times, most of them cold and wintery, when Megamind thinks, maybe someday. He has a soulbird, after all. He might have someone. A person whose soul matches his, whose bird will lead them to him. Maybe someday, somehow, someone will find him.

This is not so much hope as self-loathing. Twisting the knife that's been sunk in his heart for so long he's forgotten how it came to be there in the first place. To hope for such a thing—to hope for someone to be stuck with him—

No.

Megamind is hopeless, not cruel. Megamind is the only one who _really deals_ with Megamind. And Minion, sometimes, of course.

This is for the best.

* * *

The puffin is a surprise.

* * *

Megamind wanders down in the direction of Odile's pond one afternoon when he hasn't seen her all day, only to find her stepping down the hall with _a fucking puffin_ puffing along at her heels. Megamind stops walking and stares as it goes past.

There's—why is that—

He can't possibly be hallucinating; he slept a whole three hours last night. And seven the night before. That's an actual puffin.

Apparently Odile has finally made a friend who isn't Laramie.

Good for her?

What even is Megamind's life anymore, good lord. Okay, well, if Odile has a friend, then more power to her; Megamind knows she goes out flying around town sometimes. It was inevitable that she'd meet a bird she didn't loathe at some point. And Laramie will probably enjoy having another cold-water fish-bird around.

Puffin guest. This is fine.

* * *

The puffin shows up a couple more times that Megamind knows about. Minion sees him too, once or twice. He doesn't know whose it is, either, and both he and Megamind are curious, but hacking into the registry of the Halls to find out feels…wrong. Unnecessary. Soulbirds are public but they are still a private thing; you don't talk about other people's soulbirds and you don't ask about them, either. It's terribly personal.

Whatever. They occasionally have a puffin in Evil Lair; that's fine. Megamind scans him to make sure he isn't carrying anything that might compromise their security, and the scan comes up clean. No bugs.

And he is awfully cute, toddling around all the machinery and death traps with the distinctive bup-bup-bup gait of an auk. He can hang out and splash around in the habitats if he wants to. That's fine.

* * *

Roxanne has been Megamind's exclusive kidnappee for nearly three years before she meets either of her kidnappers' birds, but eventually she's bantering with Megamind one day while he works on a quick repair before the plot gets underway when suddenly Minion jumps and says, "Oh—Laramie, no, what are you doing out here—"

And Roxanne turns and—stops.

Minion has an Adélie penguin.

What.

The fuck.

Roxanne hasn't seen one of those since she last saw Einar, years ago, and the really wild thing is that—Laramie? Was it?—he has the same extra-deep collar marking that Crackerjack had. Roxanne is sure that isn't normal; Einar told her it wasn't normal.

"Holy shit," she says, blank. "That's an Adélie. You've—sorry, off-topic, but—Minion, holy shit, your soulbird is an Adélie penguin?"

Minion turns around and blinks at her, wearing an expression of shock.

"—Yes, I have a soulbird; yes, he's an Adélie penguin."

Roxanne shakes her head, briefly distracted. "Well of course you _have one_ , that's not what I—just, sorry, do you know who his cob was?"

And that is how Roxanne discovers that the world is even smaller than she thought, because Einar's Crackerjack cobbed Minion's Laramie. What are the odds? They laugh about this, delighted at the coincidence, and Roxanne actually forgets for a while that she's tied to a chair. She explains about her time on Einar's craft, the biologists and Crackerjack helping teach baby Pog to dive and hunt in the waves that were still too choppy and strong for Roxanne in those early days before she learned to _really_ swim.

Minion beams at her and does not ask what kind of bird would need such a thing. "You're so kind to do that for him," he says. "I wish I could have done something similar. I have an Antarctic habitat in the basement, similar to Sir's reef, but I'm sure it isn't the same."

"He seems happy enough from where I'm sitting," Roxanne says, politely not asking about the reef comment. Minion makes flustered flattered noises and the two of them chat about arctic birds for a while like old friends who don't tie each other to chairs. Minion hesitates a bit when Roxanne says she'll have to get in touch with Einar and tell her she's met one of Crackerjack's chicks, but he doesn't protest. He tells her where she can find a supplier for shockingly fresh herring, which is just fantastic this far inland.

He seems to be assuming Roxanne has a penguin, too, which…that's okay. Roxanne is okay with that assumption; it's not the sort of thing you just come out and say to someone. Honestly, she shouldn't have said anything about Laramie. She was just so surprised.

But she would have thought Minion and Megamind would know about Pog, by now…? Granted, he's generally out and about during the day, when they kidnap her, and he has been completely un-bothered the few times they've stolen her from her home. So…maybe they just haven't seen him? Or maybe they're just pretending for the sake of etiquette? It's pretty old-fashioned to pretend, that way, but you never know with these two.

Huh.

Well…okay. That's okay. Roxanne thanks Minion profusely for the tip about the herring; Pog will certainly appreciate it.

* * *

Megamind stays quiet throughout this exchange. He is very glad to be on his scooter under his machine for this.

If Roxanne turns out to be Minion's soulmate, Megamind will be overjoyed for his friend, but he will also scream for a month. The sight of Laramie contentedly nuzzling Roxanne's legs and stretching up to meet her bound hands for scritches is going to haunt him for weeks, he can tell.

Roxanne is the only kidnappee Megamind has ever found who will tell him his fuel conduits are screwy and stick to her guns and _insist_ when she knows she's right. _How_ she knows the conduits are misaligned, Megamind will never know, but she does. And he _likes_ her. He likes chatting with her. He can't be sure, but he thinks Roxanne is…friendly? Is she friendly with him? He doesn't exactly have a basis for comparison, but she _seems_ friendly, observationally. She doesn't try to kick him anymore, even when she's angry and Megamind is in kicking range.

The sinking feeling that hit him when he thought _what-if-she's-Minion's_ is…uncomfortable. Distasteful. Partly because Megamind does not want to begrudge Minion anything, ever, but also because—

He thinks, at first: but wouldn't it be a good thing, if she was Minion's soulmate? She would be around more often. Megamind could talk to her more often, and she probably wouldn't even chastise him for kidnapping her if he, you know, _didn't actually kidnap her_. It would be a good thing, wouldn't it? Wouldn't it?

It doesn't feel like it would be. That's weird. It sounds, it _sounds_ like a good thing, but it _feels_ like someone has taken a very sharp ice-cream scoop and carved a big chunk of Megamind's heart and lungs out from behind his ribs and left him bleeding. It feels _bad_. If Roxanne is in their lives more often because she is one of their soulmates…Megamind would prefer that she was his. Not Minion's. And Megamind is well-accustomed to disappointment, but he also knows when something will hurt beyond what he can easily shrug off.

So.

This is jealousy.

This is also, apparently, a crush.

 _Great_.

* * *

Later that year, Evil Lair's puffin visitor turns up one morning when the weatherman is calling for snow. A full lake effect blizzard, thunder and lightning expected. Megamind tries to turn the little fellow away, tries to tell him to go home, but the puffin is good friends with both Laramie and Odile at this point. He won't go. He just croaks at Megamind and cheerfully nibbles his fingers, and then he toddles away down the hall to the series of slides that lead to Laramie's chamber.

Megamind frets over this as the wind picks up and the snow begins to fall. It's not the cold that worries him; puffins are built for cold weather. But he is not at all sure of their flight capabilities, and the wind—

"We'll keep him here," Minion says. "We'll seal off Laramie's room if he starts trying to get away, and we'll let him go home when the weather clears."

"They'll be worried sick, whoever they are," says Megamind, crosslegged on the floor with Odile in his lap. She's bugling happily and lifting her neck at her puffin friend as he bows and bobs with her. His breeding plumage has come in since the last time he showed up; he's gorgeous. A proper little clown of a bird.

And he likes Megamind, which is incredible. Most soulbirds don't give much of a hoot about anyone who isn't their soulbonded until they locate their soulbonded's mate, and they tend to give Megamind in particular a wide berth.

"Better worried than grieving, Sir," Minion replies.

Megamind bites his lip and nods.

* * *

The puffin doesn't try to go home. He seems perfectly content to join Laramie for mealtime and he snuggles up to Odile as she snoozes while Megamind works.

And when Megamind finally sighs and says, "Okay, okay, I'm coming," because he can't ignore Odile's insistent come-to-bed, time-to-sleep piping anymore…the little fellow toddles away at his heels and comes right along to bed with Megamind. He flutters up onto the bed and tucks himself into the space between the corner of Megamind's jaw and his shoulder, warm along the length of his throat.

That's…new.

Is it…could it be possible that he's a soulbird without a bonded human? Occurrences like that are rare, but not impossible. Could he stay? Here? Odile seems to like him a lot; the way the pair of them clack their bills together sometimes seems almost affectionate. He could stay. Megamind could keep him. He's an awfully friendly little fellow, and sweet-tempered.

* * *

Megamind can't keep him. Not without at least trying to find his human. If they were separated somehow, he's sure whoever the puffin belongs with must miss him terribly.

Still. It can wait until the blizzard passes.

* * *

Megamind wakes up on his side.

This is unusual, doubly so because he does _not_ go straight into a panic attack. First time in more than thirty years that he's done that, and it's because instead of dry air and the anticipation of pain, he feels a soft slight weight behind his ear, where the puffin is resting its chin. Instead of a gurgling migraine inside his skull, he hears little wheezy snores.

He's fine. He's…huh.

He doesn't even feel rattled, the way he usually does after dodging a trigger. He really does feel fine.

Odile shoves her head into his hand, demanding scritches; Megamind was hugging her to his chest as he slept. She appears to have tolerated this reasonably well. Behind him, the puffin lifts his head and flutters, fluffs his feathers, and croaks, a rusty, rising squawk like the door of a haunted house.

Megamind slowly sits up. "Morning, Tiny Clownbird," he says, and yawns. "Odile, what are you doing, it's too early for that."

Odile is darting her head and lifting her wings at her much smaller friend. These are actions that would normally indicate a territorial display, but her feathers are sleeked; she's relaxed. She's trying to play. The puffin clatters his beak and stretches up on his little orange feet and flaps his wings, raps bills with her.

Megamind gets out of bed, shaking his head and trying not to think about the puffin going away again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter we will get into the feeeeels :D
> 
> also holy shit the interest in this fic has me alkdjflakdsjf;alskdfjjkl like i knew people tend to enjoy soulmate AUs, but i was not expecting people to be so into the birds aspect of this!


	4. Chapter 4

Roxanne is upset and out of sorts as soon as she wakes up in the kidnapping chair on Wednesday, which isn't the norm anymore. She always gripes a little bit about being kidnapped—sometimes a lot, depending on what she had planned for the day—but eventually she finds her way around to chatting easily with Minion, and the way she teases Megamind seems almost playful, most days. Even when she wakes up cranky.

But today she just sighs and pinches her mouth closed. She won't take any of her pre-scheme cues and she won't play along at all. Unfortunate.

It also…it feels wrong. Now that Megamind knows this is a crush. Roxanne unhappy never feels _good_ , but now it feels _really icky_.

But Megamind doesn't have a whole lot to lose and he has even less to go on, and Minion is off gathering the last of their supplies for this scheme, so Megamind finally clears his throat and says, "Miss Ritchi, before we begin, I need to ask…you know a lot of people, yes? Could you—I don't suppose you happen to know of someone missing an exceptionally friendly Atlantic puffin?"

She stares at him.

Megamind stares back.

"Is this a joke?" Roxanne finally says, her voice and expression full of something that—oh, she sounds angry. Oops. That wasn't the plan at all. "Are you _seriously_ making fun of me about this?"

"Um," Megamind says, thrown. Even Cranky Roxanne is usually open to answering a couple questions. "No? I just. Wondered if you knew anyone who—look, I tried looking online a bit but whoever he belongs with hasn't posted anything about him, and the blizzard isn't letting up, so I thought—"

"Wait," Roxanne says, cutting him off, shaking her head. "Wait. Stop."

Megamind stops, blinking at her. Roxanne's stare has gone weirdly intense.

"Have you—have you _actually found_ a puffin? You aren't joking?"

He falters. "I—yes? Sort of. Less 'found,' more...he showed up right before the wind really got going and I couldn't let him try to fly home in this weather."

Roxanne is staring at him again.

"He's awfully cuddly," Megamind offers, after a moment.

A strange expression crawls onto Roxanne's face. "Cuddly," she repeats. "That's…interesting. Pog doesn't usually take to strangers."

Megamind blinks.

"Wait, he's yours?" he asks, floored by the sudden abrupt knowledge that _Roxanne_ has a _puffin_ , good lord _why_ , and that he, Megamind, apparently spent the last two nights snuggled up to _Roxanne Ritchi's soulbird_. "He's—you have a puffin? Pog is a puffin?"

Roxanne flushes. "Yes," she snaps, "so what? I thought you knew this; I told Minion already, I spent six years freezing my ass off in the north Atlantic on various boats. What other kind of bird would I have?"

Megamind looks completely dumbfounded. "Storm petrel, shearwater, gannet—you've never struck me as particularly seafaring, but—"

 _Wait_ , Roxanne thinks

 _Seafaring_ , Roxanne thinks

 _Sir's reef_ , Roxanne thinks

It's common knowledge that Megamind's soulbird is a black swan, and it's reasonably common knowledge that black swans are startlingly social compared to the rest of their genus because that's a common talking point when speculating about Megamind's psychology. But Roxanne is fairly social, too, and if that actually is not Megamind's trait at all, then maybe—and if Pog has been coming here, if this is where he goes sometimes—and Megamind is built like a swimmer, Roxanne saw that years ago, so—

"I'm not particularly seafaring," she says, numb with shock and staring up at Megamind with her stomach in a knot.

He wrinkles his face at her. "But you just said—"

" _I_ am not particularly seafaring," Roxanne says again, more slowly this time. "But you are. Aren't you."

Megamind snaps his mouth closed and stares down at her, his whole body going—for possibly the first time since Roxanne met him—absolutely still.

"Oh," he says, finally. He lifts his gaze to a point over Roxanne's head and stares into the distance there.

His expression is unreadable. Completely flat.

"Oh," he says. "I see."

Roxanne swallows hard. She can feel the blood draining out of her face, can feel the head rush of shock. Megamind is— _Megamind_ is her soulmate? If this is where Pog has been coming when he disappears, if he's cuddling up to Megamind the way Laramie hops up to Roxanne for scritches—oh, _oh, that's_ why Laramie is so friendly with her—oh, if this is—if this is split somehow, because of the alien thing—if Minion is—

It takes her a few seconds to find words.

"I would like to meet your swan, please," she finally says, voice faint.

Megamind nods and comes around to untie her. His hands are shaking badly; she can feel them. "We have a room for her, like Laramie's," he says, voice toneless. "We have a habitat. Um. I'll just—I'll show you. I'm—Miss Ritchi, I—this way. Follow."

He ducks his head and trots away at an odd, clipped pace, holding his elbows at his sides and so much stiffness in his stance that Roxanne would think he was in pain if she didn't know better.

Roxanne can't blame him at all for behaving so oddly; she feels like a half-deflated balloon stuck in a tree right now, lost and fluttery and totally garbage for anything useful for the foreseeable future.

She follows him down several hallways to a sort of freight elevator, which Megamind gestures her onto before throwing the lever.

"How is she with strangers?" Roxanne manages to ask.

"Not great," Megamind says tightly. "I don't think she'll attack you. But she's used to having to chase people away from me, so."

Huh. That's. A shame.

"It's good she's protective," Roxanne finally says, for lack of anything better or more constructive to say.

Megamind doesn't respond.

* * *

"Oh, this is wonderful," Roxanne exclaims, pulled out of her haze of confusion somewhat when Megamind opens the door to Odile's room. She wasn't picturing anything so large or well-developed as this when he said _habitat_ , but—

She has wondered for years about the rumors that Megamind experiments on his soulbird, that it hates him, that he dyed it blue, that he killed it and the swan he has now is an imposter. From what she knows of Megamind, the rumors can't possibly be true, but—this settles it. There isn't even a shred of truth in there; Megamind loves this bird, to spend the energy planning and setting up something like this. The pond in the middle of the room is enormous, complete with live plants and grasses both in the water and along the shoreline, and a stream runs around the perimeter of the room. Judging by the PVC tubing and plants and barrels it occasionally passes through, this is a full wetland ecosystem in miniature. It's incredible.

Across the room, near the far edge of the pond, the black swan turns and looks at them—

—and then she looks down at the much smaller bird who has just bobbed onto the surface with his harlequin bill full of leafy water plants. He drops these in the water for the swan to eat.

"What," Roxanne says weakly.

"Huh," says Megamind. "Those aren't shallow plants, he must have pulled those up from the diving hole for the fish." He swallows. "Anyway, that's…Odile."

Pog dives again, and Odile leaves her spot by the reeds at the far wall and sails towards Megamind and Roxanne. She half-lifts her wings from her back and fluffs all of her feathers out as she approaches.

"Making herself big," Roxanne murmurs absently, and Megamind makes an uncertain sound. Slowly, she lowers herself into a crouch. "Sweetheart, baby, it's okay. Come on, baby, it's okay."

Odile sidles onto the grass at an angle and tucks her chin, all of the feathers on her long neck and her half-lifted wings fluffed in full threat display. She tilts her head at Roxanne, studying her sideways with a scarlet eye—

—and then she sleeks her feathers down and witters a greeting, stepping close and nudging her head into Roxanne's hand as she shuffles her wings back down into their relaxed position.

"Well," Roxanne says quietly, rubbing her nails through the dark feathers, "I guess that answers that. She's beautiful, by the way."

Megamind is quiet. After a moment, Roxanne looks up.

His expression is very bleak and his hands are clenched into fists. He still isn't looking at her; he's staring away across the pond. "I am terribly sorry," he says, voice tight. "This isn't—I can't—I'm so sorry. You—no. I'm sorry."

"But we're soulmates," Roxanne says, taken aback. "We could at least try—"

" _Don't_ ," Megamind snarls. "We—don't ' _we'_ me, Miss Ritchi. There is nothing to be done about this, I don't—go home. Go to your boyfriend. You don't have to—I will not trouble you about this."

Roxanne stares at him, confused and speechless and hurt. Okay, yes, she's dating Wayne, but it certainly would not be her first breakup when a soulmate entered the picture. She's pretty sure Wayne would even congratulate her. And she's pretty sure Megamind knows this, so what's—

"Minion will take you home," Megamind says, and turns on his heel. "You should probably tell him goodbye."

Roxanne watches his back as he leaves, trying to find words and failing.

* * *

What was _that?_

* * *

Okay, so, she has a soulmate. Her soulmate is not deceased; she has a soulmate and it's rather indisputably Megamind.

The city's supervillain.

Who kidnaps her a couple of times per month.

And who did not look _at all pleased_ to discover Roxanne was his soulmate, and that stings like hell. Roxanne might be a highly independent person, but the knowledge that her soulmate was _angry_ to find her...hurts. A lot. Way more than she would have expected it to.

Kimberly texts her, _On the plus side, no more kidnappings_.

 _I honestly don't know if that is a plus_ , Roxanne replies.

Einar texts her, _What a dingus. I'm sorry, kid._ She's retired, now, and has taken to texting like a penguin takes to herring.

 _Thanks_ , Roxanne replies.

She goes home and curls up on her sofa and cries into Pog's downy, oily feathers, and he croaks concernedly at her and burrows against her throat. Roxanne has been here before and she is not happy to be here again, even if it is under different circumstances.

She was startled to find it was Megamind, she was absolutely shocked, but if Megamind _is_ hers, then—well, they could have tried, right? Dating a supervillain isn't what she envisioned for herself, any more than she envisioned spending several years on various boats. But she did that, no problem, and she learned a lot and met a lot of great people. And no, she isn't sorry to have left that life behind, but sometimes she wakes up missing the feeling of salt in her hair so badly it is a physical ache. Those were some of the best years of her life; they were an experience she wouldn't give up for the world. Who's to say being with Megamind wouldn't be similar? And she likes him. She does. He's a lot of fun, aside from the fact that he never asks about kidnapping her.

But he wouldn't talk to her about it. He wouldn't even look at her.

In that moment, with her puffin tucked under the curve of her chin, Roxanne thinks of Einar's boat and she thinks, well…she has enough money saved, she could get a boat. A little one. Do small-scale chartered research missions or learn to do fishing tours on her little boat until she can afford a bigger one. It wouldn't be so hard, and Pog would be happy.

But Metro City is her home, now. Roxanne loves it here. Pog is not _unhappy_ where they are.

She takes a deep, shuddery breath. She's just hurt, she decides. She's disappointed. That's fine. She has been hurt before. She can press on. No running away, not yet. She just…she needs time. She just needs time. She'll be fine.

* * *

The fact that she can't seem to let it go has nothing to do with anything. Roxanne will be fine. Besides, Megamind will pull his head out of his ass eventually, right? He's not just going to cut her out of his life entirely.

Is he?

* * *

It would appear that he is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS WASN'T WHAT I WANTED!!!! WHERE ARE MY SMOOCHES >:C
> 
> (they'll be along, don't worry)
> 
> (many many smooches)
> 
> (but first: we angst)


	5. Chapter 5

Megamind does not kidnap her again. It’s a month before he rolls out whatever project he was going to show off that day, and another three weeks before the following doomsday device.

His schedule does pick back up again after that, though. 

Apparently he’s over her.

Roxanne is, of course, asked why he’s stopped kidnapping her. She does her best to shrug it off and smile. “We had a bit of a…parting of the minds,” she says. “It seems he has decided to go in a different direction. I wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors.”

Which is a little bit more than she was planning on saying, but it’s true enough. Let him choke on it. 

* * *

Odile does turn up on Roxanne’s balcony more than once, though, tapping at the glass in the evenings after she comes home. Roxanne lets her in; she hasn't the heart to try to keep away from her. 

Still, "And just where the hell were _you_ in all this," Roxanne asks her, the first night she comes over. She opens the door and glares down at the swan. "What, Pog can go visit you, but I'm chopped liver? A little bit of a heads-up would have been nice. Little bit of a hint? Hm? Useless thing. I know you go flying around town."

Still, she stands back and waves the bird inside. Better late than never, she supposes, but really. Odile could have come to visit sooner. 

The swan nips at her ankles, sometimes, with Pog fluttering hopefully at the door, but that's just unacceptable. 

"No, I know who my soulmate is now, thanks," Roxanne says flatly. "I know who he is and he's being a giant butthead about it, so—okay, no." She turns and grips Odile gently but firmly by the bill. "No biting. No. That ship has sailed, featherbrain. Your job is done, not that you ever did anything with it."

Odile whistles a reproach and bites her one last time before subsiding for the evening. Roxanne has to repeat this exercise a few times, but Odile does eventually get the idea and stop trying.

Roxanne has to wonder, though, the few times Odile comes over and stays the night—is that fair? Did Odile herd Megamind like this and he refused to acknowledge her? If the problem is that he doesn't want a soulmate, then just powering through and ignoring it seems like something he might do. 

Or if Pog scented Roxanne in Evil Lair, if Odile did, then it's possible both birds thought everything was taken care of. They're just birds, after all—highly intelligent, moreso than their wild counterparts, but ultimately they are just birds. Mistakes do happen. 

"Useless thing," she murmurs, lying in bed and absently petting the warm swan folded up under her arm, and trying not to feel fond of her, and failing. 

Ugh. 

* * *

On the rare occasion that Roxanne sleeps through her alarm, Pog generally wakes her up by chewing on her ear. This is, apparently, not Odile’s way.

The first time Roxanne wakes up to Odile standing on her chest, staring at her with her scarlet bill half an inch from the tip of Roxanne's nose, some incredibly distant, fuzzy rodent ancestor in Roxanne’s hindbrain screams " _DANGER! REPTILE!_ " and Roxanne shrieks and flails away. Odile, similarly startled by this reaction, opens her wings and rears back, flapping to keep her balance and whapping Roxanne in the face with her primaries in the process, and for a few seconds, everything is chaos.

Roxanne wakes up properly on her feet a moment later, her heart slamming in her ears, one hand pressed to her chest and the other twisted into her hair. "Don't _do_ that," she gasps, staring at Odile. The swan is standing on the bed with her feathers fluffed, staring at her. "Don't—good lord, is that how you wake Megamind up? No wonder he's such a basket case. Where's Pog?"

Pog is not in Roxanne’s apartment. 

She pauses for a moment, biting her lip, but…it's not like she can keep him from visiting with Megamind and Minion and Laramie, any more than she can keep him from Odile. And who knows, maybe he'll make Megamind feel guilty about this bullshit. Maybe. 

She glances down at Odile. "Is it mean if I hope you're still biting him?"

* * *

Minion is beyond furious when he finds out why Roxanne seemed so shaken, why she told him goodbye and squeezed his hand when he dropped her off at her apartment building. Minion is _livid_.

“ _Of course she was shocked,_ ” he snarls. “We are _aliens!_ Of course she was surprised!”

“Speechless, Minion!” Megamind snaps back. “Roxanne is not speechless! Not ever!”

Minion scoffs at him and resumes pacing, shaking his head.

“This is not something she should be saddled with,” Megamind says, behind him. “This isn’t—I am not something she is supposed to be—”

Minion turns, and Megamind turns away. “Sir! She dropped everything, dropped out of high school, she spent nearly six years at sea for that bird—if you think she wouldn’t rise to the occasion—”

“ _She shouldn’t have to!_ ” Megamind spits, rounding on him. “That was not something she should _ever have needed to do!_ She was supposed to graduate and go to school and—and not have to deal with a goddamned puffin for _six years!_ For the sake of a soulmate that isn’t even her _species!_ ”

Minion rubs a hand over the front of his dome. “For the love of—Sir. That isn’t your call to make.”

“No, it isn’t,” Megamind agrees, voice and hands shaking. “It isn’t my call. It—and it should never have been her call, either.”

“Maybe it shouldn't, but it _was!_ ” Minion exclaims. “It was her call. It _was_. And she made her call—and yes, she said the boats were hard and they weren’t what she wanted for the long term, but she also said she was glad she made that choice.”

It’s Megamind’s turn to scoff. “Because she is a _good person,_ Minion. Of course she is glad she chose to prioritize her soulbird. Make sure he had what he needed, to the very best of her ability. Of course she is glad she chose that.”

“Not just for Pog!” Minion says, desperate, “for her own sake, too!” but Megamind is shaking his head. 

“No,” Megamind tells him. “No. I can’t—I have done enough. Saddled her with a fucking puffin. She lost six years of her life to my alien nonsense; that is more than enough.”

“It _isn’t your call_ —” 

Megamind glares up at his friend, eyes flashing. “This part is my call,” he says. “It is my call to walk away. I get to decide whether I want to wash my hands of this and walk away. And I want to walk away.”

Minion stares at him unhappily. “No,” he says. “You don’t.”

Megamind curls his lip and hisses at him and stalks off, long cape flicking behind him. 

* * *

Minion drifts at the edge of one of Lake Michigan’s inlets for a long time, watching Laramie and Pog splash around in the shallows. Chase each other around and around through the weeds. 

The thing is.

The 

thing. 

is.

This is not only Megamind’s call to make. 

It is also partly Minion’s call, he’s pretty sure.

Laramie waddled up to Roxanne the very first time he saw her. Asked for scritches, the _very first time_ he saw Roxanne in Evil Lair. No, he never tried to lead Minion anywhere, but—well, he sort of led him to Pog, right? That’s…almost the same thing.

Minion has no idea whether he has a soulmate of his own. He knows he does not love Roxanne the way love is usually talked about, but he feels something towards her like the way he feels towards Megamind. That is definitely a kind of love—but does it count? It certainly isn’t the same as what Megamind feels towards her; Minion is sure about that, at least.

He needs to think about this more before he does anything rash, like go to Miss Ritchi behind Sir’s back, but…

But he will do that, if he needs to. This is ridiculous. Minion understands why Megamind feels the way he does, but the way Megamind is reacting to it is _ridiculous_.

And Minion misses her. It’s been weeks.

* * *

It is several orders of magnitude harder for Roxanne to maintain her composure while reporting on Megamind’s battles now that she knows it’s her soulmate out there, leaping out of the way of Wayne’s deadly lasers. She knows what Megamind can take, but seeing him get punched repeatedly and thrown around, ripped out of his battlesuit and hurled through the air, is almost worse from a distance. She can't hear him picking himself up out of the rubble, anymore. 

As upset as Roxanne is with him—and she is extremely upset—watching him fight leaves her shaky and nearly sick with worry, afterwards. 

She tries a couple different ways of getting in contact with him, but nothing comes of it. Either her messages aren’t getting through, which is unlikely because Roxanne is _very_ well-connected, or Megamind doesn’t want to talk. 

This, somehow, hurts even more than being spurned in person. 

She finds herself googling articles on how to get over a soulmate, how to extract oneself from a soul pairing. The answer seems to be therapy. Lots and lots of therapy, and distance. The thing about meeting your soulmate changing you—it might not be completely off the mark. Nobody’s been able to prove anything, of course, but Roxanne has a chill down the length of her spine that _won’t_ warm away unless Odile is nearby, and she can’t—she can’t—

She doesn’t _want_ to get over this.

That takes her a while to admit to herself. She should want to get over it, shouldn’t she? She should want to move on as quickly as possible. Right? 

Roxanne has always been pragmatic in love, with the exception of Carlie. Her relationship with Wayne is about as platonic as it’s possible for a romantic relationship to be; she loves Wayne, but she is not in love with him and she never has been. She’s pretty sure the feeling is mutual. The two of them are completely comfortable with each other, definitely best friends, but Roxanne has no desire to take things any further with him. And he doesn’t seem particularly eager, either. They’ve even mentioned this in the interviews about high-profile non-soulmate couples. It’s a pragmatic match more than a romantic one, but yes, we love each other. Of course, we do. 

That was how Roxanne felt about her other partners, too. She liked some more than others, and she cared deeply for all of them, but when things didn’t work out or their soulmate came along and Roxanne needed to move on…she was always able to shrug to herself, kiss them goodbye, and move on. It was never completely painless, of course, but it was easy enough to set her sights on the horizon and keep going and get over it.

She doesn’t want to get over this. She wants to _fix it_ , and she isn’t convinced that she can’t. There has to be a way. Megamind may have his giant blue head shoved up his little blue ass, but he is a supergenius; if he’ll just _talk_ to Roxanne—if he’ll just _listen to her_ , for _five minutes_ —she can fix this. He just doesn’t understand. Something is wrong and Roxanne just didn’t have enough time to figure out what it was, that’s all! Probably. Hopefully. She thinks, maybe. 

Einar is sympathetic. She lost her soulmate, too, and she tells Roxanne that if she wants any tips on moving on, she’ll be more than happy to help. 

“And you’re married again,” Roxanne says, pacing around her apartment with her phone to her ear. “Do you—you love her, right? Naomie? You do love her.”

“I do,” Einar says, patient, “I do. As much as I ever loved Janelle. More, maybe, I don’t know—not fair, to compare, really, two people. But it takes us a long while to get here," she adds, "so anybody telling you _oh it’s fine_ and _oh you find somebody else_ doesn’t know what they’re talking about. If you have to move on, let me know. I'll help if I can. But if you don’t have to, then don’t. It’s a lot of heartache.”

Roxanne swallows, nods. 

"You're a solitary bird," Einar says. "You'll be okay."

She's not wrong, really; Roxanne is fiercely independent. She doesn't _need_ a partner. But…

Most of her independence was cultivated by necessity. Roxanne knows she can rely on herself to get the job done, whatever the job may be, but she's tired. She's tired of doing everything herself. If her soulmate truly doesn't want her, fine; Roxanne will find someone else, but god, she would really rather not have to. A partner would be so nice. A partner, a team, someone she could lean on when she needs to. Wayne tries, but he's a bit of a flake. 

“Have you said to your boyfriend?” Einar asks, when Roxanne tells her this. 

She collapses onto her sofa. “No. I know, I know, it’s just—I don’t even know if—”

“Oh, it’ll be a hard talk, but he could help,” Einar says. “Nab your supervillain next time they’re fighting, bring him to you instead of prison.”

Roxanne laughs bleakly. “I don’t think that will go over well with Megamind,” she says, “me using his arch-nemesis against him.”

“Ah. Okay, that is fair.”

She sighs. “I’ll figure it out,” she says. “I’ll…god. I’ll figure something out.”

“At least have you sat with it?” Einar asks. “I mean sat down with yourself and just _felt_ it for a while, instead of right away looking for the way to fix it.”

Roxanne pauses. “No?” she hazards. “I don’t…really know what you mean.”

“Get you someplace quiet and face it. Think. What happened, what your heart did, what your heart’s doing. Like you did about your parents,” she says, “years ago. Get on back to that lighthouse for a while. Boring can be beneficial,” she adds sharply, when Roxanne groans. “You know you came out of there with a clear head and a knowing for your future. What you wanted. So, get you someplace quiet. And feel it. Talk to your Pog. See what comes to you. It’ll help.”

“And then I’ll know what to do?”

Einar sighs. “Maybe not,” she says, “but you’ll find where you are. First you find where you are, then you find a way forward. One, two.” Far away, there’s the sound of something being poured. “And then for heaven’s sake come see me. In the new year, yes? April. Weather’s good, then. Not too hot, not too crowded yet for the summer.”

Roxanne smiles a little and pulls her cold feet up under her body. “That sounds really nice.”

“Naomie’s just finished a batch of mango jams, last week.” Einar and her wife have a mango tree in their backyard. “We’ll send you some. Nothing helps a bad mood like spicy mango jams on preste. You want lemon, ginger, chilis, poblano? You want plain?”

“I liked the jam with the chilis you sent last spring,” Roxanne says. “That was really good stuff.”

“Mango chilis it is,” Einar says. “We’ll send you a jar of poblano, too; it’ll knock your socks off. Kid, you hang in there. Steady as she goes.”

"I will," Roxanne promises. "Thanks, cap."

* * *

Roxanne takes her old friend’s advice and spends a full week and a half at the lighthouse in December so its keepers can go on vacation for the holiday. It’s great, gives her a solid excuse to miss festivities with her parents.

She’s pleasantly surprised to find that the lighthouse is actually sort of nice, now that she's older and she knows it's only for a short while. The island doesn’t have internet or even cell service unless she’s up in the watch room, and she’s able to unplug, for once. Sit and read. Play the mandolin. Do some soul-searching, sit with her heart the way Einar said to. Talk to Pog and see what comes to her. 

It helps. She doesn’t find a solution, but right now, she’s trying not to think of one. Einar had a point about the order of things: this is like navigating at sea; if Roxanne is going to figure out where she needs to go, she first needs to know where she is. Emotionally speaking. 

The lighthouse has a hot tub now, which Roxanne is excited about. It smells faintly of brine rather than chlorine, and she sits in the bubbling water and—to her surprise—feels her lingering chill ebb somewhat. Pog dips a toe into the water and decides he wants nothing to do with it, but he seems happy enough to perch on the side of the tub and preen his oily feathers while Roxanne chats quietly to him and does her best to chart her heart’s position.

She is still hurt. She is still worried. And she is also, it turns out, even angrier than she realized. 

It is a shame she can’t get in touch with Megamind when she wants to, because she would certainly give him an earful. How _dare_ he just walk off like that? How _dare_ he take the last word and throw it in her face while she was still reeling? She is his soulmate. And if Megamind is upset about that, fine, but Roxanne has sat through enough of his bullshit that she deserves more respect than he offered. She at least deserves to know _why_.

Soulmates aren't a guarantee of a happy relationship. Roxanne knows this. A lot can happen to a pair of souls in the years between when they receive their soulbirds and find each other; sometimes people change a little too much to truly fit as well as they might have. Roxanne has certainly changed since she received Pog, but—for the better, she thinks! _And_ in helpful ways! She has changed in ways that would be _good_ in dating a supervillain! She doesn't give a damn what people in authority think of her or her decisions, she can plan and organize and raise funds and get herself by on just a little or a lot. She knows how to weather storms. 

As far as she can tell, Megamind is fleeing from a perfectly clear sky as if it were a supercell, and Roxanne is _mad about it._

* * *

She gets back to Metro City full of resolve and a wonderfully clear understanding of herself, only to learn—

Megamind is in the hospital. 

He is actually in the actual hospital, and Roxanne shouts at Wayne until her voice breaks and then she cries and breaks up with him. She hasn’t shouted at anyone like that in years. 

But then, Megamind has not needed to go to a hospital in years. He usually avoids them like the plague, no matter how hurt he is. If he’s in the hospital then it’s because he almost died, and Roxanne paces and paces around her apartment, trying not to panic about it. All of the certainty she found at the lighthouse feels terribly uncertain again. She knows it’s still there, knows her own feelings on this exist independently of Megamind’s health, but—

She sets her back to her windows and sits on the floor with the glass freezing cold at her back, freezing to match the freeze in her bones, and she shivers, and she tries and tries to think. 

If he dies—if he dies and she can’t fix this, if she loses the opportunity to ever fix this—

She takes yet another day off work (she has so very much vacation; she almost never uses it; even like this she'll still carry a week forward into next year) and rents a car for the day. She tries to get access to Megamind in the hospital for nearly three straight hours before she has to give up, and then she just drives around and around and around the industrial and distribution districts along the lake, looking for likely hiding spots for an Evil Lair. She does find a derelict power plant with windows that are surprisingly intact, but she waits outside for almost the whole afternoon and absolutely nothing happens. No sound, no distant explosion, no rumble of an invisible car going past. Nothing. 

Not even a brainbot.

Roxanne puts her seat back and stares at the ceiling of the tiny sedan and wonders, yet again, what the hell Megamind’s problem even is. It’s no use wondering; she has no answers. But she can’t help it.

She also wonders, not for the first time, if she could maybe catch a brainbot, trap it somehow, kidnap it and hold it hostage until someone came looking. Megamind and Minion seem to know every bot by name or serial number. Surely they’d notice if one went missing.

* * *

Where would she even get one?

* * *

And seriously, _what the hell is Megamind’s problem?_

Roxanne is a catch, she _knows_ she is. And she thought Megamind at least respected her; good lord, he only made her part of his schemes every damn week.

Did she do something? Is this about what she is, is it because she’s human? Or did Roxanne do something wrong, at some point? Did she say something that cut him deeper than she realized? Kick him in the shins one too many times, that first year? She hasn't tried that in ages but it's all she can think of, even though it's patently ridiculous. Hell, he laughed when she did it, half the time.

Lying in bed and racking her brain for answers doesn’t help any more than it helped that afternoon, or last week, or any of the times before that. She only has more questions. 

And her lingering chill isn’t getting any better. It came back on the flight home to Metro, and Roxanne has no hot tub. She has to replace the water in her bathtub every quarter-hour she spends there to keep the temperature up, and Roxanne finds herself shivering in the bath only a couple days after she gets home, googling hot tubs on her phone, looking for a way to make it feasible. A payment plan, maybe. Surely somewhere will deliver to the seventeenth floor.

 _Or_ she could _find Megamind_ and make him _talk to her._ She’s pretty sure this is soulmate-related; she isn’t the only one on the web forums with physical complaints. It's not a common issue, but a few other people do seem to suffer psychosomatic soulmate-related symptoms, and the chill does ease somewhat when Odile comes to visit. 

She makes an appointment to get her thyroid checked, just in case, and refills the tub, and buys herself some more wool socks. And seethes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> get your head out of your ass and go visit your soulmate, megamind, seriously


	6. Chapter 6

A few weeks into January—coincidentally, the day after Roxanne’s doctor tells her there’s nothing wrong with her thyroid—there is a knock on Roxanne’s balcony door. It’s ten PM and she’s brushing her teeth. She isn’t sure what Wayne needs at this hour, but it’s probably urgent; he never drops by so late and he knows she’s still angry with him, so she rinses and spits and hurries out to her living room in her very thick winter bathrobe and slippers, shivering, and she pulls the curtain back—

—and blinks.

She opens the door, hugging herself against the blast of cold air that swirls inside. “Minion,” she says, not bothering to hide her surprise. “Hi, are you okay? Oh, god, come in before you freeze." She waves him in, closes the door behind him, tucks her fingers into her armpits. "Is everything okay?”

He stares down at her, metal hands curled against his chest and fins sleeked to his sides, honey-brown eyes round with distress. 

“I miss you,” he says, and bursts into tears.

* * *

So, this is a thing that’s happening now.

* * *

Baffled and too worried to even consider anything like mass or weight, Roxanne brings Minion in and sits him down on her sofa, the legs of which immediately crunch away against the floor. She couldn’t care less. Minion’s jaw is locked and his fins are trembling like skeleton leaves, and she isn’t sure what to do except sit next to him and hold onto his arm, patting his fur in a manner she really hopes is reassuring.

“I miss you, too,” she says, after a while. “I never would have thought I’d miss getting kidnapped, but…it turns out I really did like the part where I got to hang out with you guys. And having a front-row seat was really neat.”

_Is he okay. Is he okay is he okay is hE OKAY_

Roxanne grits her teeth and wraps Minion’s arm in her hands, leans against him. 

“How…how are things? Otherwise?” she asks.

“Not great.” Minion gulps. “We’re mostly running on old ideas. Exploring established plans Sir was keeping for rainy days. Usually we—but—we usually only have to do that much earlier in the wintertime, just November and December. But we’re well past the solstice, now, and—he’s still—empty? And I don’t know what to do.”

Empty.

Well, ‘empty’ is not ‘physically injured,’ so Roxanne will take that and she will be relieved. She will not worry even more. She will _not_.

“Oh, Minion,” she says. “I’m so sorry.”

“I am trying to get him to see sense,” Minion whispers. “I’m trying. I don’t—I really don’t want to pull the _she’s my soulmate, too_ , card, but—but I don’t know what else to—and I think, I think he might actually listen to that. But. It isn’t fair.”

Roxanne snorts and tips her head against his furry bicep. “Screw _fair,_ ” she says dryly. “He blew _fair_ out of the water when he walked away from me. You play as dirty as you like, Minion; I will back you up.”

Minion nods and pats her knee. 

“Are we soulmates, then?” Roxanne asks, a moment later. “I wondered.”

“I think so,” the little fish says miserably, staring down at his hands in his lap. “I think—Laramie likes you. And, and so do I. I don’t—know for sure, because I don’t think Pog is the same with Laramie as he is with Odile—it’s a, a different dynamic? But. I think so."

Roxanne's throat tightens. "I'm okay with a different dynamic," she says. "I like you, too. Minion, I…do you know why he won’t even consider talking to me?” She hates to ask this way, hates to go to someone else about it, but she is at her wits’ end. And the fact that Minion wants her, misses her, came to see her, is the brightest ray of hope Roxanne has seen in this whole stupid situation, so far. “Did I do something wrong?”

He shakes his head. “It’s a lot of things,” he says heavily. “I doubt any of them are your fault, directly.”

She bites her lip. With Minion sitting right here, it’s hard to be angry. Mostly what Roxanne feels right now is terribly worried. “I try to be a person who respects boundaries,” she says. “I really do. If he needs space, I’ll give him space. But.” She swallows. “This just feels wrong, to me. And I know, I know I’m biased, but—”

“No, you’re right,” Minion says. “You’re right, this isn’t a boundary. It’s a breakdown. He’s being unusually stubborn about this one, but…I’ll keep working on him. You do want me to keep working on him?”

“Yes. Please. I’m…really, really upset with him, but I…would still like to at least try. I’m so sorry you have to do this alone right now.”

Minion pats her. “Don’t worry about me,” he says, sounding a little bit steadier, now. “Sir is stubborn, but he’s tired. I don’t usually get tired. I’ve just, I’ve just been…anxious, recently.”

“Still.” She squeezes his arm. “Minion, you can come see me whenever you want to, okay? I want to see you. I miss you.”

“And you aren’t leaving Metro City?”

She leans back and peers up at him, confused.

“You left,” he says, “in December. You went back to the lighthouse and we thought…I wondered if…”

Roxanne shakes her head hard. “No, no, I am not going back there long-term!” she assures him. “God, no. I just needed to get away for a while, and that’s the most gotten-away place I know of. So I called the owners and asked if they had any vacation plans in the near future, and would they like a house-sitter who also knows her way around a lighthouse. That’s all.”

Minion gusts a bubbly sigh of relief. “Oh good,” he says. “That’s a relief to hear. I thought maybe you were leaving, I was so worried.”

“Minion, trust me, if I was going to leave Metro City for good, I would have Metro Man get me in touch with you before I left.”

Minion blinks down at her. “That’s kind of you,” he says. “Thank you.”

Roxanne bites her lip. “Minion…is Megamind okay? Physically? I know he—he went to the hospital. I—can you tell me what happened? All Wayne would say was it wasn’t his fault, something went wrong with the—thing—and it went to pieces, but I don’t know if that’s…”

“Physically he’s fine. Now, anyway. He heals quickly.” Minion sighs again. “I have my own…theories. About how flimsy the power cells on the Typhoon of Terror were. But. I don’t know for sure. He's not—he isn’t talking to me the way he usually does.”

Roxanne bites her lip harder, stomach twisting.

“You’re in your pajamas,” Minion says quietly, getting to his feet. “I ought to let you go to bed. I’m sorry to have come so late. I’m sorry I broke your couch.”

“Minion, you can visit anytime you like,” Roxanne tells him, standing up and pushing her half-formed fear to the back of her mind. “And it was an old sofa, I don’t care about that. But yeah, I should probably sleep.” She hesitates for a moment, then thinks _oh, to hell with it,_ and pulls Minion into a hug, clunking her head against his breastplate. “It was _so good_ to see you. Please don’t be a stranger.”

He nods and pats her on the shoulder, and says he hopes she sleeps well, and Roxanne waves him away into the sky, both worrying and somehow feeling better than she has in a long time. 

She goes to bed with her heart and her mind both roiling with hot tangles of conflicting emotions, but she isn’t shivering.

* * *

Minion comes by every so often over the next few weeks. Roxanne is always glad to see him, even when she's wrung-out and tired. He arrives jittery and nervous, and he leaves relaxed and calm, even when what Roxanne needs is to vent and Minion isn't sure how to help. 

This more than answers the _are we soulmates_ question, as far as either of them is concerned. Also, Roxanne’s chill abates somewhat. It doesn’t vanish completely, but she can ignore it if she wears an extra sweater and two pairs of socks. 

Minion remains reluctant to give specifics about Megamind, but Roxanne can't blame him. Megamind is Minion's primary concern; Roxanne knows that. Still, he does seem to be completely exasperated with his friend’s refusal to engage with Roxanne, and that's interesting. They always seemed to be a team, when Roxanne was in the kidnapping chair, even when they were snipping at each other.

"It isn't _fair_ ," he bursts out one evening. He and Roxanne have just wrapped up scrabble game number two and are setting up for a third. "It isn't fair! To either of us! And I—I don't _like this_ , I don't like him freezing you out and I don't like having to come see you alone and I don't like you being upset this way—thank you for not holding any of this against me. It would be easy to do. You've been wonderfully good about this and I just don't know what to _do!_ It isn't _fair._ "

Roxanne reaches across the coffee table and squeezes his hand. "It's okay, Minion. Do you want me to come back to Evil Lair with you, tonight?” Minion blinks up at her, looking startled, and she says, “I don't even need to talk to him, if you don't want me to. Just, if he saw us hanging out—"

Minion laughs bleakly. "That would not encourage a conversation," he says. "Trust me. I wish it would. It sounds like fun; I'd love to show you my section of the lair."

"I know I'm excited to see those polyethylfullerene extruders you told me about last week," Roxanne tells him, with complete honesty, and he sends her a flattered if distracted-looking smile.

"I just don't think it's feasible, I'm afraid," he sighs. "Another time, I hope."

* * *

A few visits after that, he steps into Roxanne’s apartment and she knows immediately that something is off. It’s the set of his fins, maybe—they seem stiff, but not in the way that means he’s near to tears. 

“Hey,” she says, looking up at him and trying to figure out what’s different. “What’s wrong?”

He looks mildly surprised. “You can tell?” 

“Minion, how long have I known you?”

He smiles thinly, but even his smile is oddly brittle. “Well, you’re right,” he says. “I am having a migraine, I think.”

“Oh, no,” Roxanne exclaims. “Oh, that sucks. Um. Well, come on in and sit down, at least. I don’t…can I help? At all?”

“If you could turn off the overhead lights? And, um. Oh—are you busy? Do you have time to help? I meant to ask.”

Roxanne shakes her head, already moving to switch the lights off. “Not at all,” she says. “I had dishes, but they’ll keep. I didn’t really feel like doing them, anyway.” 

She leaves the set of pendant lights over her kitchen island on, as they aren’t terribly bright. Minion doesn’t say anything about them; hopefully that’s okay. 

He’s sitting gingerly on the edge of her sofa. Now that he’s closer to eye-level, Roxanne can better make out the odd set of his fins and tail, the latter of which is switching in a way Roxanne is pretty sure means he’s nervous about something. Maybe it’s the migraine, though; maybe it’s just stress? His ventral tendrils are pulling in twitchy corkscrew-spring shapes against each other; she's never seen that before. It looks deeply uncomfortable. 

“Can you take painkillers?” she asks. “I don’t know if…?” She trails off; Minion is shaking his head.

“No,” he says. “No, I—thought I would ask—um. There’s. There’s a sort of, um, a thing—I usually have Sir do this, but he’s finally actually interested in something and I don’t want to break his focus. I would anyway, usually, but—but I thought, maybe you could—we could try? You could—I’m, I’m not sure if you’d be willing to—”

“What do you need?”

Minion sort of stares at her, frozen. 

She tries again. “What does Megamind usually do? I'm sure I'll be able to manage.”

He swallows. “So—if—if you would please stand behind me—”

There is a hatch in the top of his dome, he explains, and he instructs Roxanne on how to locate and unlatch it. She’s going to need both hands, Minion says, and Roxanne has to scoop quite a lot of his water into a pot in order to keep from overflowing the tank, but eventually she is able to sit on the back of her sofa and get both hands into Minion’s water—

No wonder he was so scared and stammery. 

Figuring out her early adulthood all by herself made Roxanne a fairly confident person about most things, but she is more nervous about this than she has felt about anything in years, and she’s not even the one who stands to get hurt. She's pretty sure she won't be able to hurt Minion badly just by accident unless she’s really exceptionally careless, but still, fish are fragile creatures. She's never even seen Megamind touch him. 

Minion’s voice is tight with pain as he explains what to do, explains the way to hold her fingers and sweep them gently up and down along the bulbs that tip his dorsal crests. He jumps a little at her first try and corrects her, but Roxanne only has to make a couple adjustments before he says, “ _Oh,_ ” and falls silent, fins drooping. 

That’s…a good sign? Hopefully that’s a good sign. He isn’t flinching away, at least, which is what Roxanne was expecting him to do. She keeps moving. The motion is strange; Minion’s spines aren’t all the same length, and the three tallest on either side are oddly tense, slightly less forgiving than the others. But Roxanne figures it out and keeps moving slowly up and down along the rows of glowing bulbs. They flare slightly when she touches them, blue-green light sparkling in her dim room.

A migraine. Alien fish can get migraines. Huh.

Roxanne kept a few goldfish as pets when she was small, but none of them ever liked to be touched very much. They weren’t particularly friendly. And their water in Roxanne’s memory was much colder than Minion’s. But the texture when she did touch them was similar; there’s that, at least. 

“This is helping?” she asks eventually. She can only assume that it is, but Minion hasn’t spoken again. 

"Yeah. Thanks." 

And that sounds like he probably isn’t much for talking right now, but a minute later he sort of mumbles, “You've swum in the ocean." 

Roxanne hums an affirmative. 

"What is it like?"

His voice is still sort of tired and slurred, but he sounds terribly wistful, and Roxanne’s heart goes out to him. With his dome open like this, she can smell the saltwater in his tank, which answers something she’s wondered for a while. But as far as she knows, he and Megamind have never left the city. 

"It's…big," she says. "And where I was, it was very, very cold. And the waves…out in open water, I usually only went swimming when the sig wave height forecast was under seven feet. But even then, sometimes you run into a twelve- or fourteen-footer. It's wild. I don’t…I don’t really know how to describe it, I’m sorry.” _Big_ doesn’t begin to cover the feeling of what Roxanne is trying to describe. “There's this…you jump in and you feel the swell, and it sort of…breathes? It feels alive, sort of. And really, really unfathomably huge.” She shakes her head. “The people I was with said I was nuts, sometimes, going overboard like I did, but I never needed to be rescued. Pog worked out what I was capable of pretty quickly and he would bite me when I tried to swim in anything I shouldn't."

"It sounds amazing," Minion says quietly. 

Roxanne swallows. "We'll go," she says, continuing to gently stroke the backs of her fingers up and down his dorsal bulbs. "Someday. You and me and Megamind. We'll rent a boat and…and we’ll go out…someplace tropical. The Keys, maybe. I have a friend down there, and judging by your water temp I don't think you'd like the latitudes I used to splash around in. We should go visit." 

Minion pauses, then finally sinks away from her fingers and turns in his dome. Roxanne withdraws, but leaves her wrists hooked over the edge of the hatch and her fingertips in the water so he won't have to ask her to come back. He seemed like he wasn't sure how, earlier; she'd prefer not to put him in that position again. 

"Do you mean that?" he asks. "Really? You would do that with Sir and me?"

"Of course," she says. "Yes, definitely. Even if—Minion, even if Megamind and I can't get our crap worked out romantically, it is a travesty that you guys haven't seen the ocean. I am going to fix that.”

Minion smiles. "I hope you can work this out."

"I hope so, too." Roxanne sighs. "Unfortunately, the longer this drags on…I don't know. Minion, can I ask you for something?"

"Of course," he says. "Yes, you can ask me anything."

She takes a deep breath. "Can we set some kind of…I don't want to say a _deadline_ , but…a cutoff? If he won't cave by such-and-such date, you just knock him out and bring him over here and leave him on my sofa. Would that be okay? It's just," she grimaces apologetically, "the uncertainty is killing me. If we had some kind of plan…"

"I would certainly have an easier time putting my foot down if I had a plan to fall back on," Minion admits. "I probably should have done that a while ago. I just…"

Roxanne shakes her head. "It is not your job to force him to eat his metaphysical veggies," she says firmly, and Minion bubblesnorts a watery laugh and then nods.

“A month,” he says. “One more month?”

“Thanks.” Roxanne smiles down at him, relieved. A month feels like a long time, but she doesn't want to push. “Are you feeling okay now? Should I keep going on your crests?”

Minion nods. “Yes please,” he says, turning back around. “I feel better than I did, but it’s definitely not gone.”

Roxanne slides her hands back into his water. 

It’s a strange little friendship they’re building. Roxanne still can’t contact Minion, herself; he seems uncomfortable with long-distance communication at this stage. And they don’t really talk about Megamind much, or Roxanne’s issues with him—this is as much at Roxanne’s behest as it is Minion's reluctance. Firstly, it isn’t fair for Minion to wind up as a go-between. But secondly and more importantly, Roxanne is adamant that if Megamind can’t talk to her, himself, then there’s really no future to be had here. 

(Roxanne has not been part of a polycule before. Committed romantic or platonic partners in addition to one’s soulmate are not unheard-of, but they're not something most people see every day. Roxanne can’t find many resources on the subject that apply to her situation, and absolutely none that discuss what to do when you and your soulmate are on the outs before you’ve even gotten started.)

(But she takes what she can. Learns what she can. And what she does find seems to indicate that her instinct about not venting to Minion was correct—issues between two partners should stay between those two partners whenever possible. She worries, at first, that she’ll resent Minion for not helping, but that particular problem never rears its head. Roxanne doesn’t _want_ him to help.)

But they are building a friendship, and it feels like a healthy one. Roxanne is always happy when Minion comes to visit, and now…

This, especially, feels like a lot of trust. For him to ask her to put her hands into his water and touch him, help him this way when he's stressed and in pain. This seems special. 

She tells him, quietly, about the ocean. Does her best to tell him what it feels like to throw yourself over the side of a ship into water with no land visible and the seafloor two miles away, throw yourself into this rolling, breathing thing that is so big and so very, very old. It is big and old and does not care about you, and you dive down and down with your bird who can dive so much farther than you can. "And sometimes you think you'll run out of air," she says, "because you come back up and there's way more water between you and the surface than you planned, because that one extra-big wave just rolled through. But god, Minion, it's worth it. I miss it."

Minion listens and makes small, interested noises. 

"Thanks," he says, after a while. "I think…I think I'll be okay now."

Roxanne nods and withdraws. "Okay. Should I just—oh, should I put this in the microwave for a few seconds?" She picks up the pot full of saltwater she took out of Minion's tank earlier. "It's gone cold."

Minion turns in his dome and just looks at her for a moment; she isn't sure what that's about. But finally he shakes his head and says, "That's not necessary. It isn't a lot of water, it'll warm back up in no time."

"Are you sure?"

He nods and ducks out of the way as she pours his water carefully back in, pouring over the palm of her hand to scatter the stream and not blast cold across the bottom of his tank. "Thank you for thinking of it, though. I…" He trails off as Roxanne locks his hatch back down and wipes the stray drips of salt water off his glass with her sleeve. 

She looks up at him, and he pats her on the shoulder, sort of awkwardly. "I'm really happy it's you," he says, and smiles. "You've always—here, um—"

He bends and tips forward in his dome. His fins are slanted at the angle that Roxanne is pretty sure means he's embarrassed, but he still reaches carefully to put one hand on her upper back and the other on the back of her head, and guides her to tip her forehead against the front of his dome. 

Oh. This is. A thing she's seen him do with Megamind. 

"Aw," she says, surprised and flattered and unconsciously lifting her hands to hold his dome the way Megamind does. "Aw, Minion. You okay?"

"I'm just…I know Sir and I weren't really what you were expecting." Minion gusts a bubbly sigh. "And I know it hasn't exactly been easy, so far. And. Thank you. I…" He whistles something that rolls into a clicking trill, and a ripple of bright red iridescence shimmers backwards over his sides. "Thank you, Miss Ritchi. Please be patient just a little longer?"

"Of course," Roxanne says. Patience is not her strong suit, but if Minion is the one asking, she will figure it out. "Of course, Minion. I'll wait. We'll work it out, don't you worry."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, making Spooky Ghost Noises under your bed: _mooore platoooonnnic sooouuulmaaaaaates_
> 
> LOL WHAT'S AN UPDATE SCHEDULE lkajsdflkadlfkjslkd
> 
> (next one's gonna be a couple days, but chapters 5 and 6 were originally one chapter and i'm like. freaking out not posting both at once.)


	7. Chapter 7

The one-month time limit winds up being a non-issue.

Barely a week later, Pog comes flapping into Roxanne’s cubicle, croaking in distress and scattering papers off her desk as he skids to a halt there. Alarmed, Roxanne tries to comfort him, but he opens his bill wide and stamps his feet at her and croaks and croaks, stretching and fluttering until Roxanne finally stands and grabs her purse, slips her feet into her sneakers instead of her heels.

"Okay, okay," she says, "okay, I'm coming."

She follows him out of the building and breaks into a jog as he flutters through alleys and cut-throughs and finally into the garbage-filled shadows under a railroad trestle, where something is hissing. The hiss breaks into a soft bugling warble like a teeter-totter when Pog croaks at it, and—

Oh. 

Well, that's definitely Odile, half-hidden under a freezing wet newspaper. She's caked with mud and her right wing and her leg are both sitting at odd angles. Fuck. 

Okay. Well. She can't stay here.

(Roxanne hasn't seen her in a few days; she was wondering where she was. She keeps finding grasses layered in rough circles on Pog's little water feature; it's possible Odile is trying to nest.)

(She really needs to get a proper swan-sized bed for her.)

Roxanne slips off her jacket and spreads it out on the ground so she can put a piece of broken plywood down on it, then ease Odile carefully onto the makeshift sling and arrange the swan's wing and foot so she can zip the jacket around her and tie its sleeves together.

Roxanne carefully, carefully puts the sleeves of her windbreaker around her neck, across her chest like a messenger bag, and rises to her feet with the injured swan cradled under her arm with as little pressure as possible on her broken wing. Pog flutters up onto Roxanne’s opposite shoulder.

"Okay," Roxanne says, shivering. "Um. Where to, next?"

Odile squeaks, high and pained, and rests her head backwards on Roxanne’s shoulder. She's _so_ _warm_ ; her soft little head nestling under Roxanne’s ear blooms heat down her whole side. 

"We are going to the vet," Roxanne decides, and goes to find a taxi to take them there. 

* * *

"This is Megamind’s swan," the vet says, staring. "Uh. Where did you—"

"Her wing is hurt," Roxanne says, flat. She’s cranky; it took three cabs before she found one that would take her anywhere with the black swan in her arms. "And her leg. Maybe some ribs, too. Fix them."

"I don't know if that's—"

"Fix them," Roxanne snaps, "or I will tell Megamind exactly who refused to treat his injured bird."

The vet sort of pauses. "Would he even care?"

Roxanne stares at him. 

"I mean, isn't this supposed to be, like, his fourth swan? It's not like he can't clone another one."

Roxanne has never felt rage in her _molars_ , before. That's new. 

"This is your job," she says, when she finds her voice. "You are an avian vet. This bird is hurt. What the fuck is your problem."

"I—"

"I'll make you a deal," Roxanne says, staring at him, dizzy with fury. Can she spit venom? God, it would be really nice to be able to spit venom, right now. "You treat Odile to the very best of your professional ability, _right now,_ and I will _not_ burn your house to the ground and gut your soulbird over your twisted, smoking corpse."

He recoils. "Could go to the police—"

"As if they would believe you." She presses a hand to her chest, flutters her eyelashes. Pitches her voice high and innocent. "I dated Metro Man for nearly four years, I would _never._ But you know," she says, and drops the act, drops her hand to the examination table and leans forward over the injured swan, protective and threatening as she cocks her head, "I was Megamind’s exclusive pawn for even longer, and I learned some very. interesting. things from him. You want to know the first thing I learned? _Never threaten anything you aren't willing to follow through on_."

"Uh." He blinks at her, sort of shakes himself. "Okay, so…okay. Yeah, okay then. Yeah, I'll...treat her. Okay. Let’s…start with some x-rays…"

Odile bites and struggles as soon as the vet reaches for her. Pog flutters between them, opening his bill wide, stamping his little orange feet.

“Uh,” the vet says again. “Shit, um—yeah, she’s supposed to be super unfriendly even for a swan. I’m honestly amazed you got her here. Pumped up on some kind of aggression steroid, probably. Shit.”

Flammable venom. Venom that catches fire on contact with air. What was that stuff Megamind used in the Corrosive Cobra or whatever it was? Roxanne wants to spit chlorine trifluoride. “She isn’t pumped up on anything, she’s just not used to people. Pog, no, it’s okay. Pog—I said _no_ , you fluffy idiot, get down.” She looks at the vet. “I will carry her wherever you need, just let me know where to go.”

The vet yelps, alarmed, as Roxanne reaches for the swan. “Oh—don’t—her wings are free; if she—oh. Huh.”

Roxanne strokes her palm over Odile’s good wing and pets her other hand down the bird’s long neck, trying to smooth her puffy feathers. Odile squeaks at her, panting with stress. 

“It’s okay,” Roxanne murmurs to her, petting and soothing with gentle hands. “It’s okay, baby, I’ve got you. You’re okay. We’re going to get you all patched up, okay? You’re gonna be fine. I’ve got you. Easy. Easy.” She looks up at the vet again, finds him staring at her with round eyes. “I’ll carry her,” she says again, and he nods.

* * *

And that is how Roxanne winds up with her soulmate's injured swan resting on her broken sofa in her living room. Pog hops over and around the much larger bird, gently preening what feathers he can reach. 

Roxanne stands behind her coffee table, chewing on her lip and watching them interact. She still doesn't know how to get in touch with Megamind. 

Or Minion, technically, but this is definitely Megamind’s fault, somehow. 

God, he's infuriating. 

She collapses onto her sofa next to Odile and carefully gathers the swan into her lap, petting her. Odile witters at the attention, nudges her head under Roxanne’s chin. 

_Would I kill a man for this bird_ , Roxanne wonders. She's not entirely sure what possessed her to threaten arson, but she is very sure she could get away with it. It wouldn't even be hard. 

And, honestly? She probably would, if she needed to. Maybe not for just refusing to treat her, but…good lord. _Would he even care?_ What kind of question even was that? Yeah, there are rumors, but still. The absolute nerve.

* * *

Four days pass before Roxanne finally loses her cool. What, Megamind isn't even going to try to search her apartment? His soulbird is missing and Roxanne is his soulmate and he isn't even going to ask her about it? She knows for a fact he isn't in jail right now. Screw him. 

And _what_ _was he thinking_ , not putting some kind tracking chip in her? Honestly, Roxanne has to imagine Odile is chipped and the thing just malfunctioned, is all. Megamind would never let his bird go away on her own if he didn't think he could find her if he needed to, and microchipping your bird is basic common sense—

—oh. Or he took Odile to be microchipped when she was a chick, before he had the means to chip her, himself. He took her to a vet, and they either lied to him or botched it deliberately. After that incident with Doctor Picky McSpineless a few days ago, Roxanne wouldn't be surprised. 

Or Megamind did it himself and screwed it up, somehow. Anything is possible. 

Whatever the case, Roxanne has Megamind’s soulbird and no way of letting him know through back channels without potentially tipping off any of his enemies, so she'll have to gamble a bit. As she's about to sign off the segment they’re recording for that evening, she clears her throat and smiles brightly and says, "Oh, one more thing—a very special message for our fair city’s resident supervillain, Megamind. I have your swan at my apartment, she is hurt, please come get her. Thank you and goodnight, Metrocity."

"Can't do that," her producer says weakly, after they cut, but Roxanne just shrugs. 

"Cut it, then," she says. "But I'd appreciate it if you'd let it run; I've got his soulbird and he doesn't own a cell phone; how else am I supposed to tell him? And his enemies will know she's with me," she adds, "even if you don't air it, you know how the film and sound guys talk. If Megamind finds out I tried to get Odile back to him and you stopped word from reaching him before it reached someone unsavory, exactly what do you think he'll do to you? I know him. He loves that bird. Best not risk it."

She sends her producer a bright smile. He gulps.

* * *

KCMP airs the message. 

Roxanne is already home for the evening, relaxing in her pajamas. Half an hour after her segment ends, the distant roar of Megamind’s hoverbike makes her prick up her ears.

Good. Finally. Roxanne knows it won't be Minion, knows Minion will see his opportunity and take it. She stretches, then quickly dresses in her favorite pair of jeans, a gray-blue scoop-necked shirt the approximate thickness of cobweb, and a slouchy cardigan Kimberly gave her years ago as a joke and which Roxanne has never worn because it is dark gray with blue lightning bolts on it. Roxanne is not above dressing to the occasion to get her point across: I'm very pretty and you're very stupid but I'm still wearing your motif so _fuck you_ , sit down and talk to me. 

And it's a really comfortable cardigan, dang. Hopefully she'll have cause to wear it more often, in the future. 

All right. Hair brushed, cute outfit, bad attitude, and a supervillain pounding on her balcony door because he's too frantic for lockpicks. 

Go time.

* * *

"You have Odile," he gasps, all wild-eyed frenetic energy when Roxanne slides her curtain back and opens the door. "You have Odile. Where is—please—"

He flings himself across the room and onto his knees at his bird's side, wittering in his throat in a perfect imitation of his swan's fluting vocalizations. Odile lifts her head and witters back, and she curves her neck around behind Megamind’s high collar as he runs his shaking hands over her sides.

"Her wing is broken," Roxanne says shortly, her arms crossed over her chest. Seeing Megamind has brought all her angry feelings back in full force. "Also her leg. And you have got _some nerve_ ignoring me for _five months_ , Megamind. How dare you."

"You found her," he says, as though she hadn't spoken. His whole body is trembling. "You found her, you brought her home. I…thank you, Miss Ritchi, I…"

"The vet said she'll be okay," she says. "The fractures weren't terribly complicated. Keep that bandage on for another five weeks and make sure she doesn't try to fly for another four after that. Her leg should heal up a bit faster and he's got it splinted so she can walk a little, but she needs to take it easy. Megamind, seriously? Five months. Five _months_ , I haven't seen you or heard from you or—"

He doesn't look at her, doesn't stand up. "I told you I wouldn't bother you anymore."

"Fuck _bothering me,_ " Roxanne snarls, stalking over and grabbing the back of his mantle and hauling him onto his feet. He stumbles, and she lets go of his mantle without shoving him away from her the way she wants to, glaring at him as she steps back. "I am your _soulmate._ And no, that doesn't actually mean I'm entitled to you, but I at least want to know what the hell is so wrong here that you won't even _try._ " 

She had been mildly worried that she wouldn't be able to stay mad at him after spending some evenings with Minion. She is distantly pleased to discover this is not the case. 

Megamind just squints at her, blinking like he's missing something.

Roxanne grits her teeth. "We are soulmates," she says. "Yes? Yes. We are soulmates and _you wouldn't even look at me._ You wouldn't tell me what was wrong. You just _walked away,_ and I have been wondering why ever since! If it’s—if it’s me, if it's something inherent…fine. If I’m not smart enough, or I’m too pink and hairy…I get it. I’ll be sad about it but I’ll move on; I can’t help those things.

“But if I did something wrong," she continues, talking over Megamind when he scowls and starts to speak, "if I—if I said something that was too hurtful—I don’t even know what it _was!_ You just _left!_ I can’t even apologize for it? Or, or try to explain myself? What did I _do?_ ”

"You didn’t do anything," Megamind snaps. “But you were dating my arch-nemesis at the time and you had been doing so for a while, so forgive me for assuming you wouldn't want that to change."

Roxanne’s ears heat. "I will not forgive you for that," she hisses at him. "I will not forgive you for assuming _anything_ without even bothering to speak to me about it, and—and that is _such_ a cop-out; you know Wayne and I have always, _always_ said all bets would be off and we'd re-evaluate if a soulmate ever came into play. You _know_ that." She puts her fists on her hips as Megamind lowers his brows and looks away, and she pokes him in the chest as she says, "You want to tell me what the real reason is? At least do me the courtesy of pretending to respect me enough to offer some closure before you storm out of my life like I shouldn't be even upset—"

His expression contorts and he bats her hand away. "Your _life,_ " he snarls, bitter. "Your life, your—you could have been so much more in your life.” 

Roxanne jerks like all of the wind has been knocked out of her. Megamind keeps talking.

“But you dropped out of high school and put _your whole life_ on hold for a bird you should never have needed to deal with in the first place. For _six years_. You delayed all of your plans and your goals for _six years_. Because of a soulmate that _isn’t even human._

“And don’t tell me it wasn’t a burden, Miss Ritchi. Don’t pretend it wasn’t hard on you. I have taken," he scoffs an incredulous laugh as Roxanne reels, " _so much_ from you. Indirectly, in Pog's case, but directly, too. Kidnapping you? Drugging you without your consent and in spite of your numerous and extremely reasonable complaints? Most of which I mocked you for!"

Roxanne has no words. This is absolutely beyond the pale, beyond anything she considered while she was racking her brain for answers.

Megamind’s lip curls. "I am under no illusions about the status of our 'relationship,' Miss Ritchi, and," he waves a hand at Pog, "on top of all that, now we know I ruined your life. You could have gone so much further! You could have done anything, been anything! And you're stuck with—with _this!_ "

“You sound like my parents,” Roxanne says finally, voice shaking. She bends and scoops her puffin into her arms. “I don’t get along with my parents.” 

Megamind makes an ugly sound and a sort of _there-you-go_ gesture with both hands. 

Pog croaks and clacks his bill at the attention. Roxanne strokes his feathers; her fingers are shaking, too. She wasn't expecting this crap from Megamind at all. Atypical life choices are something she imagined a supervillain would at least understand, if not sympathize with. 

"You," she says, "do not get to tell me I made the wrong decision."

"That's not—"

" _Yes_ , it was hard. My family was no help at all and I was basically on my own at seventeen. It was hard, and absolutely none of it was anything I want to do for a living, but if I _had to do it again_ ,” her volume is rising but she can’t find it in her to care, “I would make the _exact same decision,_ because those were also _some of the best years of my life._ "

"That is _ridiculous—_ "

“And I still went to college!" she snaps. "I still have a career, and I like to think I’ve gone pretty far! I picked my plans right back up and I made my way through them; Pog didn't take anything away from me! But—”

“But you didn’t _want it!_ ” he exclaims. “You could have gone so much further and you didn’t even want—”

“ _Let me talk, goddammit, I’m not finished!_ ”

There is a pause. Roxanne stands, jaw set and teeth gritted, until Megamind jerks his chin in a nod. 

She takes a deep breath. “I might not want to live on a fishing boat,” she says, holding her voice low and dangerous, “but I got to watch a puffin grow up and I fell in love with the ocean and I learned what was important to me, and _you don’t get to tell me_ that was a mistake. Maybe I could have gone farther with a duck! Maybe I could have! But I don't care. I wake up some nights and I miss it so bad that I—you have no idea, _no idea_ what it's like to be on the overnight shift on deck and you can't feel your nose or your ears, and the ocean is silver and green with the moon and the northern lights—you didn't—Pog didn't take anything away from me! You didn’t take anything away from me, you didn't _ruin my life_ ," she's snarling now, almost too overwhelmed with indignant rage even to think straight, "you don't get to tell me my life is a ruin, you—you indirectly gave me some of the best, most formative experiences I had! Just— _don't you shake your head!_ Don't you _fucking_ tell me what _I lived!_ And do _not_ tell me what I'm supposed to regret," she adds, "because it was hard _and it was worth it_ and I can't regret who I became because of it. I can't and I won't."

"You—wait what?" Megamind says, suddenly faltering. "No, that's—that is not what I—who you are is fantastic; I am not saying you should regret that! But this isn't—"

"Pog was my life, and _I'm happy_ ," Roxanne snaps, and Megamind goes silent. "He was my life for six years and he is the sweetest, cutest bird and _I am glad_ I took that time off with him. I am _thankful_ to have him in my life, no matter what that looks like; _how dare you_ act like I shouldn't be. 

"And I got to have you in my life, too, for a while," she continues, and Megamind blinks, "and I'm—I _was_ also thankful for that, until you came out with that massive pile of bullshit. I—and I have had one, _one_ other person who felt like they might be a soulmate for me, _o_ _ _ne_ other _ in my _whole life_ , and I don't know if I'll ever find a third! I don't—I just—" She bites her lips together for a moment to try and ground herself. No luck. She pinches the bridge of her nose and tries to breathe. 

"A third," Megamind says. "A—"

"Yes, a third, that's what I just said, try to keep up, genius," she snaps. "I just wish I could talk to you about keeping you in my life, bullshit or no. But _you won't let me,_ and _I don't know why,_ and I'm—ugh, about to start crying again. Goddammit."

She turns away and sets Pog back down next to Odile on the cushion Roxanne picked up for her—he tucks himself back under her good wing—and stalks over to her side table, yanks a tissue from its box, and wipes her eyes with it. Blows her nose. 

When she turns, Megamind is still staring at her. The irritation has gone out of his expression entirely, now; he looks stricken. Alarmed, if she didn't know better. 

"I don't understand," he says, eyes wide. "I don't understand."

He doesn't—jesus.

" _I am your soulmate!_ " Roxanne snarls, slamming her tissue into the garbage. "I am your _soulmate!_ And when you found that out, you basically told me to fuck off and die! And now you're acting like I shouldn't be upset about it, and I'm supposed to regret some of the most important decisions I ever made, and I'm stupid for being happy with where I am, and so I’m _pissed off!_ I am _really not sure_ what there is to not understand about that, Megamind! Megamind, I think that is pretty straightforward!"

He lifts a gloved hand to his mouth. "That's not what I—no, that's—I didn't mean—"

"I don't _care_ what you meant!" Her voice breaks; she drags her anger back around her like a protective shroud. "You knew I had no way to contact you and you told me to 'say goodbye to Minion'—like you get to control what _he_ does!—and if I didn't find Odile and bring her home, you would still be ignoring me! And I still wouldn't know why!" She blinks, throws her hands into the air. "I still DON'T know why!"

Megamind swallows, the muscles in his long throat working.

“So tell me why, Megamind, for the love of god or the speed of light squared or whatever the hell you believe in—to hell with Wayne, I thought you and I had something going between us! I wasn’t sure what it was, but we had _something!_ What, just because I could be 'more' than what I am? That is _such a load of crap_ , are you fucking kidding me? How dare you! You asshole!"

"I didn't—mean it that way," Megamind says, in a halting voice that catches like dry leaves. "I didn't think you would—I didn't imagine I would hurt you. And, and no, Roxanne, that's not what I—I do not want you to regret yourself." His eyebrows tweak upwards in the middle of his forehead. "I just—am I—not your worst-case scenario?"

…what.

Roxanne closes her eyes and grits her teeth and takes a deep breath in through her nose. Megamind keeps talking. 

"Because if I'm not, if I'm—you said _other_ , you said one _other,_ a third, and—if you meant I was someone you could have—"

"Stop," she says, and he stops. She keeps her eyes closed; if she looks at him right now, she will scream in his face. "Okay. You're saying you did this…because you _thought_ it was something I wanted—"

"Partly," he starts to say, but Roxanne raises her voice and presses forward. 

"—or because you _decided_ it was something I _should want._ Which one."

There is a pause, and then: 

"Oh. The second one," he whispers. "I'm. Oh, I'm—sorry." 

Roxanne nods.

"I…but, but _fuck off and die,_ that's not…"

"I realize that is not what you said," Roxanne tells him, opening her eyes and glaring, "but that is what it felt like, to me. And it hurt."

Megamind does at least look mortified to hear this; that's gratifying. "Sorry," he whispers again. 

Roxanne shakes her head at him and goes and drops onto her broken sofa.

Megamind's voice sounds faintly behind her. "What…happened to your couch?"

"I put Minion on it and the legs snapped and I haven't gotten around to replacing it," Roxanne says flatly, resting her forehead on her palms and trying to get a grip so she can maybe, hopefully, get a few more answers out of Megamind without yelling at him about it again. Because there is a chance, it seems, that this was a misunderstanding. Due to some outrageous assumptions on his part. 

He isn't arguing anymore, at least.

"…Minion?"

"He's come to visit and hang out a few times," Roxanne says. "It's nice to see him; I miss him. He misses me, too, he says. Come sit down."

There's a pause, and then footsteps and the sound of fabric rustling against itself as Megamind gathers his cape into his lap and slowly sits. "Minion…misses you," he says, sounding uncertain. "He never said."

"He shouldn't have to." Roxanne lifts her head and scowls over at him, anger flaring again. "He follows your lead; if you cut ties with me, he feels like he has to cut ties, too. Your actions affect other people. It's not up to them to tell you everything.”

 _But he is sitting on a pretty big trump card,_ she doesn’t add, because she knows Minion doesn't want that card played, and for Minion, Roxanne will go the distance and leave the soulmate triad out of it.

Megamind shakes his head mutely, and Roxanne scowls. Not even at him, this time; it's—her fingers itch, her chest aches. She wants to _reach_ for him; what's up with that? She never wanted to, before. She never really thought about it, before. Now she's still mad as hell, Megamind just insulted her entire goddamn existence, and all she wants to do is fling herself at him and cry on him until things are okay. Since when is that a thing Roxanne wants?

She does not, of course, do any of that. 

“I thought you respected me more than this,” she finally says. “I really did think you respected me, at least a little.”

He lifts his head. “I respect you.” 

“Not as much as you think,” she says, sharp, “since you just up and decided I should be upset about a thing that _I_ think I wouldn’t be out of line to thank you for.”

In her peripheral vision, Megamind flinches. “You _would_ be out of line for that,” he says. “That would be…this is not something I _gave you,_ Roxanne.”

She scoffs. "All right, look, Megs," she snaps, "this is _subjective._ Whether I'm happy about this isn't something you have a say over."

"But you—" 

He stops.

" _Were_ you happy about this?" he ventures.

"I am not sure what difference it makes," she says, "considering you're just going to tell me I'm wrong about it, anyway."

Megamind stares at her. "I'm—but—no, I just want to know if—what would have made a difference? To you?”

Roxanne snaps up off the couch like she's been electrocuted and whips around. "It would make a difference if you _FUCKING LISTENED TO ME,_ " Roxanne screams, and Megamind flinches back, eyes like saucers. "But you _WON'T!_ You're my soulmate, and you won't—I'm—!"

She cuts herself off, breathing hard, then forces herself to drop her shoulders and steeple her fingers in front of her mouth, index fingers pressing into her lips, so she won't shout again. Her temper hasn't gotten the better of her like that in a long, long time. 

But the thing about Roxanne, the reason Megamind chose her as his primary kidnappee in the first place, is that even with her blood up and boiling over, _she can't stop noticing things._

She glares at him. 

"You're my soulmate," she repeats, mumbling against her fingertips, and she sees Megamind twitch again.

 _Taken so much,_ and _worst-case scenario,_ and _won’t trouble you_ , and—

Ah.

“Ah,” says Roxanne, and drops her hands. Megamind eyes her warily. "I see. I'm thinking about this in the wrong direction. This has nothing to do with me being your soulmate, does it?” Her voice is still shaking. “This is about you being mine.”

He drops his gaze, lips twisting like he's bitten into something sour.

"I see," Roxanne says again.

_How dare you, how DARE you put me through this for no FUCKING reason, how dare you not pay attention to me trying to work this out with you, how dare you—you are my soulmate, I have missed you, I want to work with you, I want this to work, I want you—I want this—I want—_

"I am not what you expected," Megamind says, curling his hands into fists on his knees and glaring down at them when Roxanne doesn't speak again, "any more than a puffin was what you expected. But unlike Pog, there is no expiration date with me. There is no _when-this-is-over,_ with me. I am a supervillain. I am an alien. I know this, I am used to this; I told you, I understand the status of our—relationship, our dynamic. I am well aware of what you must think of me. Acting like there might have been something to the rest of our lives is…unkind."

Unkind. Acting. Must think. Might have been. 

_Must think? What I must think of—_

Jesus.

Roxanne feels her chin scrunch as her eyes fill, but she gulps and blinks furiously and yanks her expression back to the safety of cold fury.

"Ten-minute break. I am going to make hot chocolate," she says. "Do you want a cup?"

Megamind jerks, then looks up at her like she just sprouted a second head. 

“I need a break," she says again. "I am making hot chocolate. _Do you want some._ ”

His expression of total bafflement doesn’t shift, but after a moment, he says, “Um…yes? Thank you?”

She nods. “Fine. Wait here. And—” 

She digs around on the shelf under her coffee table for a moment until she comes up with a newspaper. She folds this back on itself, then down again, then grabs a pen off the table and hands—does not throw, although it's tempting—both newspaper and pen to Megamind. 

“Here. Do a crossword puzzle; I’ll be back in ten minutes. And _don’t leave,_ ” she adds, as he slowly takes the puzzle and pen, "because if you leave now, I really don't think we'll ever get this worked out, and that's—" She cuts herself off before her throat can get tight, but she can't help the tears in her eyes. 

Megamind stares at her. 

" _Please_ don't leave," Roxanne finally says, and she stalks away to her kitchen like she isn’t two breaths away from outright sobbing with rage and exhausted confusion. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> megamind is an idiot and roxanne is _a little sensitive_ about the whole what-do-you-MEAN-you-dropped-out-of-school thing, what fun!
> 
> oh!! and thank you to Wissennder2 for the idea about Odile maybe building a nest at Roxanne’s apartment! it made my heart do a squeezy thing.


	8. Chapter 8

She storms into her kitchen and she is not gentle about getting the things ready for cocoa. She clatters the pot on the stove and she lets the cupboard close too loudly as she yanks the measuring cup and the hexagonal Abuelita box out of their places.

(Instant is easier, but Roxanne needs something to do. A distraction that ends in something nice.)

But refrigerators can't be slammed without messy consequences, and once she has the milk out, she takes a moment to lean on the counter and breathe.

It seems like such a little thing, such a bizarrely subtle distinction, but…

It makes sense. If Megamind wanting her isn't the issue, if him wanting a soulmate at all isn't the issue, if his issue is about Roxanne wanting _him_ —

Okay.

Okay, that…changes things. Somewhat. Roxanne is still angry, but she is also, now, tentatively relieved.

If…okay, the whole thing about Pog, if that was less _you made the wrong decision_ and more _I hobbled your future_ …okay. That's fine. Misguided, but way better than saying Roxanne should have chosen differently. Way better than insinuating she isn't good enough as-is.

And way more likely, too; it _really_ does not seem like the kind of thing Megamind would be hung up on. She really was shocked that he would say something like that to her. This makes so much more sense.

Megamind is still thinking of it as a problem, though. He said this was unkind. How does he think this is unkind? Roxanne yelled at him, yes, and that certainly wasn't good. But he was talking about their whole situation, not her behavior. What—what assumptions is Megamind making, here? He said _acting like_ , too, _acting like there might be something there_ , and that doesn't make any sense either.

Does he think Roxanne was yelling just because?

Or—he knows, now, that she thought maybe this was personal; does he think she's offended about being rejected—?

She measures out the milk, plops the block of chocolate into the pot, and starts stirring slowly with her whisk.

But the only way any of _that_ makes sense, the only way Roxanne's offense would be somehow 'unkind,' is if he thinks she wouldn't want him anyway. If she was just offended on principle.

But Roxanne would have said something about that already! If that was the case! If that—

Unkind. Unkind? Does he—think she's doing this intentionally? Kick him while he's down? Does he think—

_Were you happy about this? Was I not your worst-case scenario?_

Past tense. Seems significant. Maybe—

Stop.

Speculation and assumptions are how they got here in the first place. Roxanne will just have to ask him directly. She knows what she wants; she'll just have to ask what he wants.

For now, she shakes her head at herself and re-orients. Pot. Stove. Whisk.

Breathe.

* * *

The chocolate is nearly finished when the floor creaks behind her.

"Um," Megamind says. "I did the…all of the crosswords. And it's been ten minutes. Can I…do? Anything? With this?"

Roxanne nods. Most of her rage has faded, now; all she feels is tired. Upset, still, but not nearly as angry as she was. "Yeah. Yeah, you can get a couple of mugs out of the cupboard for me, thanks."

He brings two down, and then he damps a paper towel and wipes both of them out. Roxanne glances at him, raises her eyebrows.

"Minion always," he says quietly.

Ah. Roxanne nods again.

"Megamind," she says, staring back down at the pot of nearly-done chocolate, "I need a yes or no answer and I need you to be honest. When you came here tonight, were you expecting me to tell you to get out and leave me alone after you picked up Odile?"

He hesitates. "I…was, yes," he says, after a moment.

"How about now?"

"I'm…yes? Yes. But," he continues, frowning now, "that…may only be pessimism, rather than a reasonable extrapolation based on actual facts."

Roxanne glances at him.

"The cocoa doesn't fit," he says. "And, and some of what you said was…I don't…I don't know."

Okay.

Well, pessimism or not, those are some pretty extreme mental gymnastics if he can listen to Roxanne nearly cry about him leaving and insist—loudly and repeatedly—that he gave her good experiences and _still think_ this isn't going anywhere…but it does give Roxanne a little more insight into why he's been acting this way.

"And you think this because you've kidnapped me, drugged me, tied me to various categories of furniture, shown complete disregard for my autonomy," she says, "and you…'re an alien, you're a supervillain, and…you…blame yourself for me getting Pog, thereby forcing me to spend six years at sea. And probably also because I've been shouting at you. Yes? Am I missing anything?"

"That more or less covers it," he says, watching her stirring with the whisk.

"Okay," she says, and breathes for a moment. Megamind remains silent.

Finally, Roxanne says, "Listen. I think I have been pretty clear about Pog. Yes?"

"Yes," he says, quiet.

"Raising him on the ocean wasn't something I had to do. You didn't force me into it. That was my decision, and I do not regret it. And I have never resented him for it, and I have never resented my soulmate for it. Those experiences made me who I am. I like who I am. Yes? Comprende?"

"Yes."

"Good. And—"

"You should like yourself," he says, still in that oddly subdued voice, and Roxanne glances at him. He sends her something like a thin smile, but his eyes are still big and the set of his eyebrows says he's upset. "You're amazing. I didn't mean to imply otherwise."

Roxanne swallows. Dammit dammit dammit she is not going to cry, she is _not_.

"And…and the other stuff, Megamind, the kidnappings and all that…I can get past those."

Megamind makes a skeptical sort of noise.

"I really can," Roxanne says. "You clearly regret doing all that to me, now that we have…what's the word—"

"Context?"

"Sure. You seem to be kicking yourself on the whole kidnapping thing, and—god, Megamind, I have _missed_ _you_ , so I guess I don't actually mind them so much, looking back.

"And I've been dating an alien for nearly four years now," she continues, trying to stay on track, trying to cover everything without getting so upset again. "Why would you think I'd have an issue with you?"

"He doesn't count," Megamind says, bitterness entering his voice. "He never does, where humans are concerned. He's Adonis with superpowers; I'm a shrimp and I'm only marginally human-shaped."

"He is only Adonis from a distance," Roxanne says flatly. "Trust me, you're way more my style."

The sound Megamind makes in response to this is far more scornful than skeptical; that's a shame. Roxanne can't dwell on it, though. If she gives him the chance to double down where Wayne is concerned...she can't see that ending well. 

So she keeps going. "Also, it might help you to know: we were _barely_ romantic. Wayne is a good friend and we pair well together, but—"

"— _pair well together?_ "

"—we aren't in love. Okay? I don't think we ever were. I certainly wasn't."

Megamind is staring at her, obviously thrown. "I don't think I would believe that," he says, "if I didn't just hear you describe your relationship as if it was a wine and cheese combination."

Roxanne snorts in spite of herself. "My point is, you being an alien is not an issue for me. I just…Megamind, I really am only upset that you wouldn't even try to talk to me. I think I've been pretty clear about that. And you still think I might be about to throw you out? Really?"

He doesn't say anything. Roxanne scowls down at the cocoa frothing in the pot, thinking desperately for a way for her to bring this back around without getting so upset at him again.

Finally she looks at him. "Take off your mantle."

Megamind recoils. "What?"

"Your mantle," she says again, jerking her chin at him and moving the frothing pot off the heat. "Take it off. Whole thing. We're going to have this out, one way or another, but there's something I want to do, first."

Slowly, Megamind lifts a hand to the clasp at his throat and twists it until it clicks, and then he pulls the whole shoulder array free in one piece—collar, mantle, cape—and sets it on the back of one of the chairs at Roxanne's kitchen island.

"Thanks," Roxanne says, and turns off the stove.

And then she turns around and steps all the way into Megamind's space—he goes absolutely still—and she wraps both her arms around his awkward, skinny body and squeezes him hard.

"We," she says, glaring at the line of windows behind him, "are going to figure this out. Okay?"

Megamind is completely stiff against her, unmoving. "Okay," he says, voice creaking.

She pulls back with a sigh. Megamind stands stick-still and blinks at her, looking extremely spooked, and finally Roxanne just shakes her head and moves away to pour the hot chocolate into their mugs.

Behind her, Megamind clears his throat. "You just—why would you—"

Roxanne gives him his mug; he holds it in front of his chest with both hands, then hisses and shifts to hold it by the handle.

"I don't know what else to do," she says. "I'm tired. I'm tired of feeling angry and I'm tired of feeling hurt and I can't…I just want to talk to you. About all of this. I miss you," she says, a little bit of a wobble creeping into her voice. "I haven't seen you in five months. And you're my soulmate. So…unless you're really unhappy with this…I would at least like to know what you might want if we moved forward."

He pulls back a little. "You would be willing to move forward," he echoes, disbelief at the edges of his tone. "You would—really? This—you aren't just—saying that?"

Stunned, Roxanne gapes at him. " _Just saying_ —no! I am not just—Megamind, if we're going to do this, then _bare minimum_ , I need you to please believe me when I talk to you. I just—god, _do_ you think I'm telling you all this just to be mean?"

He flushes. "Not to be mean. But. I can't…I don't know how you could…"

He trails off, leaving the two of them staring at each other. After a moment, Roxanne sighs again and shakes her head. "Come on," she says. "Let's go sit down."

"Wait," he says, flashing a hand out to touch her arm with just the very tips of his fingers. "Wait. Miss—Roxanne. Are you—happy? About this?"

She looks at him. His eyes are very round, and with how brilliantly green they are, she can see clearly the way they are pinning with stress every few seconds. He looks so terribly hesitant and confused. And Roxanne truly has no idea what to tell him. _Yes_ and _no_ are both equally true, right now. _I would have been? I almost was?_ Also both true, but those feel like they would be needlessly cruel. He already knows he messed up; she doesn't need to rub it in.

"I want to be," she finally says. "I really do want to be. And I think I am. But we need to talk. Are _you_ happy about it?"

He swallows, still staring at her. "No," he says, "but—that—is predicated on several assumptions that seem—potentially incorrect. If," he says, somewhat unsteadily, "if by some miracle you can find yourself happy with this, Miss Ritchi, then—all I will have in me is joy."

Oh, thank god. Okay. Well, Roxanne has that, at least.

She nods, then heads back over to the broken sofa. Megamind trails silently after her, blowing on his hot chocolate.

* * *

She sits him down on the sofa, then carefully takes her seat beside him a short distance away. Megamind sips his cocoa and twitches when it burns his mouth, and he stares down at the coffee table, at the newspaper with its perfectly-filled crosswords. He is sitting with his knees together, his elbows at his sides.

"Thank you for not leaving," Roxanne says.

"I couldn't if I wanted to," he tells her, subdued. "Minion dropped me on your balcony and flew away. Said he was sick of my shit and he would be back in the morning. I did think about climbing down," he adds, as Roxanne's jaw drops (good old Minion, but that was mean), "but you have more to say." He shrugs once, a jerk of his narrow shoulders. "The least I can do is give you space to get it out there. I've dealt with painful truths before."

Roxanne closes her mouth and recovers herself, studies him for a moment. "Okay," she says slowly. "Um. I do have more to say," watching how his lips pinch, "but I don't—I don't want it to hurt. I'm done yelling at you, I think. And…" She takes a deep breath. "I am sorry I yelled. I have something of a temper, but. That's really no excuse. I shouldn't have raised my voice at you, I'm sorry."

His expression twists. "You were well within your rights to yell at me," he says sharply. "You were entirely correct on all points. I certainly at least owed you an explanation or a chance to explain yourself; I did not afford you either of those things. That wasn't fair and it wasn't right—you were entirely justified, I—"

"Stop. Megamind. No." She waves at him, puts a hand on his arm above the rows of spikes. He jumps and looks down at it as if it is going to bite him. "To clarify—I am apologizing for _yelling_. I absolutely _am not_ apologizing for being angry." She smiles thinly and withdraws. "I'm still pretty pissed at you for walking away like you did."

"I don't blame you."

"I know you don't." _And thank you_ , she doesn't say. "But…do you understand why? Now?"

He swallows. The leather of his gloves creaks; he seems to be gripping his mug rather tightly. "You wanted to talk to me," he says. "You wanted—something." He frowns, blinks. "You wanted something," he says. "And I…walked away with it before you could say so. Before you could try. You didn't—you couldn't tell if it was because of—something you did wrong. And I wouldn't let you try."

Huh. Well, that's not how she would have phrased it, but…

"Yes," she says. "Yes, that's right."

His lips twist, but all he says is, "What was it that you wanted?"

She hesitates. "Mostly I wanted to know what _you_ wanted," she says. "In a soulmate, in general. I…do we have a future, at all? Do we have a chance at one?"

His gaze snaps to her. "Do you want one?" he says, sounding genuinely incredulous.

"What— _yes!_ " Roxanne stares at him, amazed, appalled. First _just saying that_ , now this? "You— _yes_ , Megamind, yes, I want a future with you. I want to at least _try!_ I want—god, I want to know you; I want to fall in love with you! I want us to at least have a chance at that!"

Megamind's whole face fell open at _love_ , and Roxanne swallows.

"Look," she says, "I…do realize you thought I would want nothing to do with you. But like I said—I _just said_ , what, two minutes ago?—all that stuff didn't matter to me the way you thought it did. Yes, Megamind, I want a chance at a future with you, if you want one with me."

Megamind's shocked expression lingers for a second and then morphs into what Roxanne can only call 'intense suspicion.'

Good…lord, okay.

"I don't know if you'll believe this," she tells him, "but you are not even close to my worst-case scenario. You're actually _pretty much_ my _best_ -case scenario."

He scoffs.

"I mean that," Roxanne says. "I do. And I want—you. Okay? In my life, in—my future—I want you."

His lip curls. "People don't _want me_ , Miss Ritchi," he says. "People don't want me anywhere near them."

"Okay, well, _I do_ ," she snaps. "I know what I want in a soulmate: I want someone I like to talk to, someone I can have fun with, someone I can laugh with. Share my life with, relax with.

"And I know that last one will take time," she adds. "I know it might be a little while until we can just _be_ , together. That will have to come with time. And practice. Trust. But—"

"And you would not be unhappy," he says, sharp, "to _practice_. These things. With," he gestures at his chest, " _yours truly_."

"Not unhappy at all, no, that's what I'm telling you. And I'd like you to be mine, truly, so _thbpbpt_."

Real mature, Roxanne. But this whole situation is completely ridiculous, so whatever. Also, what is going on with him? He seemed open to talking just a couple minutes ago and now he's closed himself off again; what is with that?

Megamind turns his head and studies her face for a moment. "Who would be your worst-case scenario?"

"A crabber in a tiny village on an island in Nova Scotia who dropped out of school in eighth grade and never went any further with it because they just weren't interested in learning."

Megamind blinks. "That's oddly specific."

"I thought about it a lot after I got Pog." She shrugs. "Nothing wrong with that life, but I just can't see it ever being my thing."

Megamind is quiet for a while. Finally he offers, "Better healthcare in Canada, at least."

Roxanne splutters a laugh in spite of her stress. "True. But—do you see what I mean? You are an _actual supergenius_ , you're located in a city I love, you're interesting, I already know you're fun to banter with. Even when we aren't going back and forth, it's nice to talk to you. You're hot as hell: that's a fantastic bonus. And as far as I can tell, you don't give a hoot about fishing, so—"

"I fish," he says. "Just…it's not the way humans fish."

"You'll have to show me, sometime."

Megamind doesn't say anything to that, but Roxanne is watching his face, and she sees his confusion shift—briefly—to something like hope—

—and then almost immediately to angry denial.

Huh.

" _I mean that_ ," she says, before Megamind can spend much time in that headspace or start to argue about it. "Megamind, I am not just saying that. I—can we start over?" she asks suddenly. "Seriously, can we—I want to start over. Can we start over?"

He glances at her.

Roxanne holds up both hands, fingers splayed. "We're soulmates," she says, and wiggles her fingers. "Yaaay?"

Megamind glares and turns away, looking pained.

Roxanne peers at him. "Did you ever even want a soulmate?" she ventures. "When you were younger? You have a soulbird; did you ever think about—about me?"

He's quiet for a long, long moment.

"I tried not to," he says, finally. "It seemed. Unlikely."

"You have a soulbird," Roxanne says again. "Why would a soulmate be so unlikely?"

He's quiet.

Finally he sighs. "Fine. Unlikely isn't…I wanted it to be unlikely."

She blinks. "Then…no, you didn't want a soulmate?"

His expression twists. "Why would I want someone to be saddled with _this_ ," he says, baring his teeth as he bites the words out, gesturing at himself. "I'm not—to want that would be—cruel to the point of malice. To hope for someone to be stuck with—not even their species? You can't be serious."

Roxanne stares.

Well. That's. A lot to unpack.

"Speaking of soulbirds," he adds, that bitter edge in his voice again, "wasn't _that_ ever so much fun, waiting for Odile while everyone else got their birds right on time." He looks down at his mug. "Frankly, I thought my letter was a joke until the Warden brought her to my cell."

"Pog—was delayed, too," Roxanne offers, still reeling, still trying to wrap her head around _saddled with this_. "It was pretty uncomfortable."

"Ah, yes," Megamind says, cold, "but I'm thinking you at least did not have to deal with the whispering speculation about whether or not you have a soul, at all."

"The—what was—"

"Yes, for example…" He clears his throat and closes his eyes, tips his face up a little. "His eyes are _so creepy_ ," he says, in a voice much younger than his own. "It isn't right, coming around the corner and they flash at you and—" His voice changes again, goes feminine— "Well here's what _I_ think—you know how they say the eyes are the window to the soul? well here's what I think, I think ours would reflect too, except we've all got souls, and he hasn't got one—and that's why he hasn't got a bird, either—"

Her jaw drops. "Are you serious?"

"Regrettably." His small smile doesn't reach his eyes. "Anyway," he says, glancing down at his mug again and then taking a sip, "no, I didn't—I tried not to think too hard about a soulmate. For a little while after Odile came, I thought…but. It hurt. Thinking I could have that." His lips thin. "I couldn't see how to make it work. Wanting a soulmate wasn't…it wasn't ever going to…make any kind of difference. In the end."

He pauses, and for a moment he seems like he might be about to say something else. He takes a vengeful-looking slug of cocoa, instead.

Roxanne swallows, aching to reach for him and completely at a loss as to how to do so.

"That is awful," she says, instead. "Having to hear that. That's awful. But you—you definitely do have a soul, and you definitely do also have a soulmate."

"Apparently."

She catches her breath. "Don't— _don't_ , why are you—okay, you thought it was hopeless, you thought I wouldn't want this, I get that. But," she shakes her head, "I still don't understand why you just _left_ ; I've seen you do things you think are impossible. I've _seen you_ try again and again, but this—? You wouldn't talk to me for five— _five months_ , Megamind, and you didn't even look at me, and now you're— _so bitter_ , and—"

"I am _scared_ ," he spits, and Roxanne feels herself physically jerk with surprise, both at his tone and the words themselves. "I am so—all I have _ever done_ to you is hurt you! Steal your time, your energy, drug you, tie you down—I know we are on the same page, with this!—and now I'm—your _soulmate?_ I am your soulmate and I have been nothing but a plague on you!" He curls his lip. "And you _say_ none of it matters but I have stolen _so much of your life_ , and now I have stolen what should have been your happy ending as well, and I can't—and I'm—screwing it up, destroyed it before I even knew it was—and, and there's no way for me to—"

He cuts himself off again, and Roxanne waits a few seconds, but he just glares down into his cocoa, teeth gritted.

Finally she tells him, "I don't see how that leads to fear."

He's quiet.

Roxanne swallows hard and scoots toward him on the sofa, carefully reaches to touch him again, wrap her hand around his upper arm without gripping or holding. "Megamind, look—please look at me." He doesn't. "Do you—I told you those things weren't important. Just a few minutes ago. They _don't_ matter to me, not—not the way you think. Please. I don't understand."

He doesn't look up. But he doesn't pull away, either.

"I realize there's more to this than meets the eye," Roxanne says, because that is still, _still_ , all the same stuff he's been saying all night. "I know I don't understand. But I _want to_ , I do—please talk to me, you don't have to be scared, nothing is destroyed. I want to understand, I—and I don't even know what you might want, here; I need—do you want this or not?"

He does pull away from her, then, but he also extends a finger, signaling _wait_. Roxanne drops her hand and falls silent, and Megamind stays where he is, elbows at his sides, staring down at his cocoa, barely even breathing.

Finally he takes a breath. Releases it.

"Sometimes, on still nights, I go out to the end of the longest pier behind Evil Lair and I sit with my feet in the water."

His gaze remains fixed on his mug; the lines around his mouth are very deep, the corners of his lips turned down. His fingers on his mug are bent claw-tense and his breathing is shallow.

"I can't look up at the sky for very long, at night, without…feeling sick, after. But. It is—rare, but there are nights when the lake is calm and perfectly still, and I can sit with my feet in the water and look down…and the lake is full of stars. All the way down into the black, stars. Near enough to touch. Light years caught and reflected. And I think: I could just…push off. And fall away. Into the dark water. And the lake would catch me, and it would hold me there with all the stars, and I would be safe. And. I would know I was safe.

"I think about that, on still nights, when—when the lake is full of stars.

"And with you—that is what I—want—with you," he says, still without looking up, without moving. His mug is beginning to shake, the liquid inside splashing up onto his gloves as he speaks. "You—are—vast and deep and dangerous and so full of bright things, and—I think I am already there. Falling. For you. And. Roxanne. I want that, _so very badly_ , with you, and I'm…" His voice breaks. "I have wanted. Before. Things that I—cannot have. Cannot figure out. Wanting is fuel for—mockery, disappointment, it is—pulled away from me. And I know, I know when a disappointment will hurt more than I know what to do with." He struggles for a moment, then bursts out, sounding very near tears, "I did, I did want a soulmate. I did. I wanted a soulmate _so much_ but wanting that, wanting someone who could only be disgusted—disappointed—it was. Selfish. The absolute pinnacle of selfish cruelty. And we, _us_ , our dynamic is—I thought—if you didn't fully hate me before, surely you must, now.

"But here you are," he continues, still choked and halting, "and you are trying to make this work, trying—saying I'm—nearly your best-case scenario, and I can't—"

"Megamind," Roxanne tries, but he just keeps going.

"And I want—you asked, you wanted—to know, and I think, I _think_ what I want is to be able to, to give myself—to give over control to—not always, not always," he quickly adds, squeezing his eyes closed, "but the space to _finally_ just give up and let go and—relax and know that I'm—that you won't—"

He cuts himself off, but _hurt me_ rings pretty loudly in the silence after his stuttered gulp.

"So," he concludes, face scrunched, the whole of him shaking, "I am—falling. And now—and now I am—waiting."

Falling, and waiting to hit the ground.

Roxanne sits for a moment, staring at him, vaguely aware that her mouth is open.

God, okay, so he's scared that she'll—what, throw this at him? Laugh? Scorn him? He's _shaking_.

"I want to believe you," Megamind says, looking away and finally leaning away from her so he can put his mug on the coffee table with trembling hands. "I want to. You say you want to be happy about this, you say you want to—understand—and I want to believe that, but—"

"Stop," she whispers.

He stops.

Roxanne stares at him, trying to think of something—anything—to say to that, but all she can come up with is, "Would you please take off your gloves. Please."

He looks at her, defeat and misery in his expression.

Roxanne wets her lips. "Please," she says again, and touches the back of his hand, "I just want—"

He jerks away, but then he goes for the buckle just below his shoulder, so. Maybe that was okay, after all.

He undoes the first one, unfastening the strap and easing the leather down his arm until he hits the spikes. He pauses, there, to untuck a zipper along the side of his forearm and hand and open it. So _that's_ how he's able to get the leather to fit so close to his little wrists.

"Here," Roxanne says, when he finishes tugging the first glove off, "let me try the other one?"

Megamind stares at her for a long few seconds, but—he turns slightly and offers his shoulder.

Roxanne gulps and scoots toward him. He jerks again when she touches him—but he doesn't fully withdraw.

Carefully, she unbuckles the strap at his shoulder.

(Roxanne is going to have to be careful with him. She was not anticipating that.)

(She is beginning to have an idea of why he's—god, between the no-soul thing and the fuel-for-mockery comment and being so freaked out just from her asking what he wants—because that was it, wasn't it? It had to be that, had to be her asking to know what he wanted that made him go bitter again—he told her what he wants and now he's cringing away like she's going to slap him—he genuinely couldn't let himself believe any of this, could he?)

He holds very, very still as she works the leather down his arm. Roxanne fumbles a bit when she gets to the zipper—it is well-hidden; Minion is a genius in his own right—but she finds it in the end, and finally she eases the whole thing over his long fingers and off his hand with only a little bit of difficulty.

(And what—and Minion, that first night when Minion came to see her, his eyes were so big and he clutched his hands to his chest and he cried—Roxanne thought it was because he was tired, or because he was upset, because he wanted to see her and hadn't seen her in so long—)

(—but was it fear, too? Was this part of it, this—fear of—what kind of bravery did it take for him to step forward and take matters into his own hands without once talking to Megamind? What kind of—)

(Roxanne is going to hug Minion _so hard_ the next time she sees him.)

And through all this, she is still hyper-aware of Megamind watching her from the corner of his eye as she works on this. Hyper-aware of the hard lines of his shoulders and spine, drawn tight with tension.

Roxanne can't blame him.

Not just because of his stress, either. She's trying hard to appear calm and at ease with herself and with him as she works and frantically tries to think of anything that might reassure him, but tonight is quite literally the closest she's ever been to her soulmate while conscious, despite having known him for years. Roxanne is not only emotionally exhausted but physically flustered, too. He's not wearing his spikes or his cape or his collar, and small or not, Megamind is _built_. Roxanne isn't sure if his leathers are padded but as far as she can see, he's all lean, wiry muscle. It's even better up close. And his leathers end halfway down his forearms, and his hands are bone-spindly and blue, absolutely unmistakably inhuman and lovely.

Roxanne takes a deep breath, then takes Megamind's near hand and presses it between her own before she can second-guess herself. Megamind sucks in a breath—he is terribly stiff here, too—but then he curls his long, trembling fingers over her knuckles and finally lifts his gaze to hers, and Roxanne exhales and sends him a shaky smile despite how he's still almost flinching.

What she wants is a hug. This will have to do for now; Megamind looks like he might shatter if she went any further right now. His hand is cold, his skin is soft. It's something.

"Our dynamic," she says, gripping Megamind's hand as he stares at her, "can change. I do not hate you. You have not stolen anything from me. My time, maybe; okay. But— _you are_ my happy ending. You have not taken that away; you're _it_."

"I am not a happy anything," Megamind blurts, still staring, and Roxanne feels her lips twitch.

"I did notice that, yes," she says, wry, and Megamind blinks, then rolls his eyes and makes a small sound that is definitely sarcastic, even if it is shaky. "But listen, okay? I have been sitting here for five months, thinking about you," she says, squeezing his hand, "thinking about how much I wanted to talk to you, how scared I was that everything was messed up somehow. And the more I thought, the more upset and scared I got, because I realized—you are actually perfect for me.

"And I realized," she says, staring at him, "I want—and I know this won't make sense to you, I don't need you to understand it, I just need you to believe me—I am sitting here with you because I realized: _I want to be with you_. Not some faceless unknown person. Not a different soulmate. _You, Megamind_."

Megamind blinks—

—and then his whole expression just crumples. He shakes his head but Roxanne grips his hand harder, squeezes his fingers.

"Because! You're right! You are not what I expected! You are _so much better!_ And I thought, I thought you didn't want to even try—" Her soulmate bites both his lips together so hard they go white and stares forward and down, squeezing her hand, too, now, "—but you do. Yes?"

He nods hard, eyes welling.

"And _so do I,_ " she says. "Okay? I am—I am happy about this. I _am_. I'm currently," she adds, huffing a self-conscious laugh despite the way Megamind is quite clearly blinking back tears, "still a little bit ticked, but I'll get over it. I am so very much looking forward to knowing you, _really_ knowing you, and—loving you. Okay? I am not—I absolutely _am not_ disgusted, or disappointed, or upset. What you described sounds perfect; I want that too, I want—can I—please, I know we're new at this, but can I just—"

She moves closer still and ducks under his elbow to lean close and put her arms around his shoulders. Megamind sort of gasps and sort of shivers but he does, also, twist his newly-freed hand into the material of Roxanne's sweater at the small of her back.

"And listen." She reaches up and carefully smooths her palm over the side of his head, holds him there. Megamind flinches again at that but he also chokes and pushes sideways into her palm, staring at her. "I'm not scared of falling. I'm not scared, _because it's you._ You always have failsafes for me, always. Every time. You'll catch me; I know you will. I know you will. Yes?"

Megamind gulps and nods, wordless, and Roxanne nods back and—slowly leans in to brush a kiss over his lips, which are parted and trembling. 

"Oh—"

"I'll catch you the same way, I promise," Roxanne murmurs, lips skating over his. 

" _Oh_ ," Megamind says again, mournful, tipping his head forward to clunk against Roxanne's, and then shoving gently as he clenches his long fingers in her sweater, "no, you're—being—sweet to me, now?" He gulps. "And—and you _mean_ that, you really—and I don't, after I just—I don't know why you would—"

"I did shout at you a bunch, first," Roxanne says dryly, and Megamind laughs as his tears finally spill over.

"Really?" he says, in a voice like begging. "You—really do want to try, with me? You were serious? Really?"

" _Yes_ I was serious, Megamind, you tremendous nincompoop," Roxanne sighs, exasperated, leaning her head against his in return, feeling the way he sort of nods gently at her, against her. She was…okay, honestly she was expecting him to kiss her, but—this works too! This works, too. "Of course I was serious; I _know_ you. You don't pick up on hints and sarcasm goes over your head unless it's blisteringly obvious." She pulls back and shakes her head at him. "I wouldn't do that to you. Not about something like this, not when it's important."

Megamind blinks, and then his smile flashes wide and helpless for just a moment and he finally pulls Roxanne into a crushing hug, leaning down to hide his face against her neck with a ragged gasp.

"We're okay," she says, shifting sort of into his lap so she can bundle him in and rest her chin on his sharp shoulder. It jerks against her throat. "We're okay. I—really am excited that it's you, Megamind. I'm not disappointed, I'm—I'm _thrilled!_ And if you're happy too, then—we'll be okay. We'll figure it out."

" _We_ ," he echoes, muffled, slowly dragging his fingers against her back. Roxanne crooks her arm and wrist to splay her fingers over the back of his head and hold him there. " _We_ , yes, god, thank- _thank_ you."

Five months of uncertainty and worry and fear, and Roxanne finally, finally feels the ugly knot of tension between her shoulder blades begin to ease.

holy.

smokes.

Things she has just learned about her soulmate…one: despite his unending optimism when it comes to his ability to defeat Metro Man, Megamind is pessimistic to the point of active and vehement denial about his romantic prospects even when his soulmate is sitting right in front of him.

And, two: underneath the spikes and armor, the man is _tiny_. Roxanne knew he was short, knew he was on the small side, but she wasn't really expecting to be able to just gather him in, like this. It's really nice.

After a while, she eases him back, sliding her hand over his head as he moves. He blinks at her again, eyes wet with hope or fear, but there's a smile trying to come through underneath.

"Really?" he says again. "You really want—you're _excited_ about this?"

Roxanne nods. "And I would like you to kiss me now," she says, "if you want to," because she's pretty sure he won't unless she tells him to.

Sure enough, his eyes go big, but he flashes that half-frightened smile at her again and leans forward. He brings a hand to the side of her neck and leans into her, lips moving inexpertly over hers, and Roxanne hums and strokes her palm forward to guide him into a slightly better angle.

As far as first kisses go, it's solid. Promising. Roxanne hums against him, pleased.

"That," Megamind says, when he breaks away with a gasp, "is the nicest thing I've ever…thank you."

She blinks, surprised. "For what, asking you to kiss me?"

He shakes his head. "No. For not—for being honest. With me. For knowing not to tease about—thank you for not—lying to me." He laughs, sort of bleakly. "Figures the one time I assume something _is_ a nasty joke, you're being serious. Most people just lie and then sneer at me when I don't pick up on it."

…Well that explains a lot.

"You aren't most people, of course," Megamind continues, unaware of Roxanne's sudden swell of indignant ire, "but I—I was just so—I lost sight of that. I still don't understand but I—do believe you, I think; I'm—"

Roxanne growls and grips the sides of his head in both hands and clunks their foreheads together. Megamind makes a sound of surprise in his chest, a sort of soft, upward warble like the call of an inquisitive bird.

"Do not thank me," Roxanne hisses, ignoring this, "for _not bullying you_ , Megamind, jesus christ. It's called being a decent _fucking_ human being and it is _not_ something you thank someone for."

He huffs a laugh and pushes back. "If that's being a decent human, you're the only one I've met who hasn't been incarcerated."

"And if I ever find the people who taught you to expect that from someone who cares about you," Roxanne grumbles, "I will lose that distinction pretty quickly, you can bet."

Megamind withdraws, eyes sparkling at her as he cocks his huge head. "Did you just offer to assault my entire graduating class?"

She shifts her gaze sideways. "Assault. Yes. Definitely not murder."

Megamind squints at her at that, but Roxanne can see the grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. "You said you wouldn't be sarcastic," he accuses.

"About important stuff! This is—"

" _Murder is important, Roxanne—_ "

"—one, mostly sort of a joke, and two—not when it's people I hate! No it's not!"

Megamind is laughing, now, finally, happiness and relief in his face as he shakes his head at her. Roxanne moves to brush the last few tears away from his cheeks with her thumbs.

"There's your beautiful smile," she says, pleased. "I wondered when I would see it again."

He swallows, tilts his head the other way. "You think my smile is beautiful?"

"I think all of you is beautiful." She sends him a crooked grin. "Well…potentially all of you. The leather doesn't leave much to the imagination, but I don't think I've ever gotten a read on your feet."

Megamind looks briefly dubious about this, but he just gives a nervous laugh and doesn't argue. Roxanne shakes her head at him, still grinning.

Eventually he coughs.

"You are, ah…making rather a lot of eye contact, am I—is there—something I should be doing? Or—"

"No, no." She laughs a little. "I've just never gotten to see your eyes up close, before. They're really, seriously stunning; I do not know where the hell those kids got off calling them creepy."

Megamind goes a bit tense and takes a breath like he's steeling himself, and Roxanne is about to ask what's wrong when—

—pale membranes flick sideways across the surface of his eyes and back as Megamind holds himself stiffly away from her. 

Roxanne doesn't have to hide her amazement; her mouth falls open and she grabs his face in both hands and blurts, " _What?_ Do that again!"

Megamind twitches and stares at her, then finally drops his shoulders a little with a shocked, breathless laugh. He blinks them again for her, twice.

"Can you close them and hold—oh that is _so cool_ , can you see like that?"

"I—can, yes. Not as well as—open, not in air, but—"

"In water?" she demands, as his eyes clear. "They're for swimming? You have built-in goggles for swimming?"

He nods.

"Holy wow, _jealous_ ," Roxanne says, with complete honesty. She moves her hands to his shoulders. "Megamind, if you thought that was going to put me off looking at your eyes, you miscalculated."

"I—see that. I—"

"What else?" She leans back, rakes her gaze over what she can see of his thin torso. "What—so when I said _seafaring_ I didn't know the half of it, huh? What else? Are your feet webbed?"

"Um. I—yes. Sort of. And—gills? Mostly gills. Is. The big one. And—" He swallows hard. "Can I," he says, his eyes on her face, one of his arms around her shoulders as he brings his other hand up to very carefully touch Roxanne's cheek. His gaze flicks, briefly, to her mouth. "Would you let me—again—"

"Yes," Roxanne says, hopeful, and—

Megamind presses his lips to hers. Just for a second, not nearly long enough; he's pulling away in the next breath and looking at her with big worried eyes, sort of frozen…but Roxanne smiles, and he relaxes. 

Ridiculous creature. "Come back," she says, tugging him in, "more of that, please," and she licks his mouth open and kisses him slow and deep, intending to keep going on him until some of the tension goes out of his frame—

—but that's when they're interrupted by a rather loud whistling squeak from Odile. She has Pog under her good wing; his bill is sunk against his chest and his eyes are closed.

Roxanne scowls over at the swan. "Oh, I'm sorry, are we disturbing you, your majesty? Do you think it's time for sleep?"

Odile's head is up and she has somehow contrived to look reproachful. She bugle-squeaks and folds her neck back and her head out of sight.

Roxanne looks at Megamind, who hasn't taken his eyes off her face since she pulled away. "I think our birds are going to bed. We should…relocate?"

He hums uncertainly. "I can sleep on the couch, if you want…?"

"Absolutely not." She pushes backwards and gets to her feet. "I mean, you can if you want to. If you're uncomfortable. But I…would like to keep you closer, if you're up for it."

Megamind swallows. "Really?"

"You're my soulmate. Yes, really."

He looks away, and Roxanne carefully reaches out and brushes her fingertips over his crown so he glances back up. "Also," she says, "I have missed you, and I've been extremely worried." She takes his hands and pulls him to his feet. "It's not _just_ because we're soulmates."

"You never wanted to before."

"I never seriously considered it, before." She gives him a very frank look. "Megamind, you may be incredibly handsome, but interrupting my days entirely on your terms did not exactly put me in a huggy mood when the bag came off. I had no idea how much I'd miss you if I never got to see you again."

Megamind grimaces, and Roxanne smiles a little.

"But I did miss you," she says. "A lot, in fact. So, yes: I want you closer than I did before."

He crinkles his nose a little. It's adorable. Roxanne wants to kiss the end of it; it's not fair. "Come on," she says, "I bet I can find some pajamas that'll fit you. Okay?"

"I don't have a toothbrush," he says, hugging his arms across his chest as Roxanne goes to turn out the light in her main room.

"You can use mine, if you want."

"You—I can? You don't mind?"

"Of course not." The room falls dark, and Roxanne cocks her head at Megamind, still waiting by the sofa. She did tell him to follow her, didn't she?

"It's okay if you don't want to," she says, going back over to him in the shadows. "I won't be offended."

He studies her for a long moment, witchlight eyes flashing in the low light coming in from her balcony, then looks down as Roxanne slowly takes his hand.

"I want to get this right," he says.

Roxanne gives his fingers a reassuring squeeze, but Megamind leaves his head bowed—

—so she leans toward him, ignoring his sharp intake of breath, and kisses the top of his skull.

He makes an almost hurt noise and falls forward, slipping his arms around the small of Roxanne's back and stepping into her space, rounding his shoulders and ducking to hide against the side of her throat again.

She's a little surprised at that, but she hugs him.

This really wasn't what she was expecting when she told him to come and fetch Odile. Granted, she was too angry to expect very much, or even hope for much, despite her evenings laughing with Minion. She wanted to work _something_ out, or at least she wanted answers before he left for good. Megamind spikeless and barehanded and folding himself into her arms is the best outcome Roxanne can think of. But this is the second time he's moved to hide his face while hugging her, and Roxanne doesn't know why.

It's not unwelcome, of course. Sort of flattering, actually, considering how incredibly jittery he was about all this. But—

Oh—so, is this—is this maybe the giving over that he mentioned? Is this—he also talked about—falling, and catching, and holding safe—

Roxanne is beginning to fill in the blanks between the flashes of Megamind's real personality she's seen over the years, flickering at his edges of his posturing and his cackling. He definitely enjoys his work and he gets a genuine kick out of bantering with her, but—and she knows, she knows what his reputation is and she knows it is absolutely built on a solid foundation of ruthlessly efficient enforcement of his demands and expectations. The man takes no prisoners, gives no quarter; he is perfectly willing to cut through whatever and whoever he needs to in order to maintain his position, sometimes literally.

But there is more to him than that. A quieter side, and maybe a softer one. He has always been gentle enough with her, after all.

And oh, wow, there's a thought. Roxanne strokes a hand slowly down his spine and back up again, and the supervillain she's holding sort of shudders and huddles closer. When was the last time he received anything even resembling gentle treatment? Lord knows she wasn't exactly gentle with him, this evening.

She swallows. A lake full of stars, he said.

"I'll catch you," she says quietly. "And—I'll hold you. And, Megamind—"

She carefully shrugs him backwards so she can see his face, the gleam of his eyes when he lifts them to meet hers.

"Someday, you'll know you're safe."

His answering smile is thin, and the gleam winks out as he lowers his gaze again. Roxanne steps back and tugs on his hand.

"Come on," she says. "Let's go brush our teeth and lie down? And I'll put a pillow and a blanket out here on the sofa for you in case you change your mind or you need some distance. Okay?"

Megamind nods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FUCKIN FINALLY AM I RIGHT 
> 
> *confetti* :D :D :D yaaaaay smooching and hugs, hugs and smooching, and cuddles soon to follow, huzzah
> 
> i'm so glad y'all are enjoying this fic T^T


	9. Chapter 9

This isn't real.

This is not real. This cannot be a thing that is actually happening to him. Can it?

Megamind may have a magnificent intellect, but he is emotionally completely wrung-out and sort of stunned, and _this isn't real. Is this real?_ is about all he can think as he cleans his own teeth with Roxanne Ritchi's toothbrush under the bright lights in Roxanne Ritchi's bathroom.

Roxanne Ritchi. His soulmate. His soulmate who wants him.

She gave him clothes. Pajamas. They're folded over the towel rack, waiting for him. She even tried to give him something like what he would wear at home; she asked what he was used to and then dug around until she found him a flannel button-down shirt and loose flannel slacks. Drawstring, of course, and probably too long for him; they were her brother's. Drew left them with Roxanne by mistake last time he visited.

Megamind rinses. Spits.

This is a trick, he thinks, as he slowly strips out of his leathers and undersuit. Shirt first—roll his undersuit down—button the pajama top over his skin, quickly. Roxanne's bathroom is terribly bright and Megamind cannot let himself be fully naked, here, even with the door locked. Not under the lights. No.

This has to be some kind of horrible prank, he thinks, trying to pull the drawstring on his pajama bottoms tight enough to keep the garment at his waist, above the glands of his sex. It won't work; the flannel is too thick to bunch efficiently. The trousers ride low on his hips. They're loose, thankfully, and Roxanne's shirt is long enough to cover him fully, but. Still.

This can't possibly be real—but Megamind remembers the weight of Roxanne leaning against him, the heat of her hands on his skin, the excitement in her face and her voice when he told her about his water adaptations. And Roxanne wouldn't—she _wouldn't_. She said she wouldn't do that to him and Megamind believes her; this is not a trick, this is—it is real. It is. Roxanne wants to, she wants him. In her life, in her future, she wants him; wants to know him, wants to—

She _kissed_ him. She kissed his mouth, the skin of his head. She put her arms around his body to keep him close.

It is real. It doesn't feel real, but it is. Has to be.

Megamind hugs his arms across his chest in the ill-fitting pajamas and stares into the middle distance, chewing his lip and trying to think, trying to get his bearings and come up with some kind of plan, however basic. How—how is he going to do this?

Emotionally—

If he wants this to work, he can't run from her again. Not again. Can't risk it. Megamind cannot flee from this no matter how in danger he feels; he has to—he will have to—let himself go. Like a trust fall.

Which would probably be easy enough for most people, but trust falls have never worked out well for Megamind. On the useless annual team-building days back in school, his classmates only ever caught him when the adults were looking. Sometimes not even then. Megamind learned to get himself suspended before team-building days after the fourth time he slammed onto his back and got the wind knocked out of him.

But he can do this. Once more into the breach. Roxanne mentioned before that she's seen him attempt the impossible, and she was right. He can do this. Megamind has been frightened before; he can push his fear down and act against it. He can. He has to, if he wants this, and heaven help him but he does.

Megamind is fearful, but where fear lives, hope lives also. He can let himself hope, even if it is frightening.

Physically—

He frowns. Physically might be a problem. Roxanne appears to have few qualms about touching him, which is probably a good sign, but sex with him might be another matter. Humans are almost universally built for penetration, one way or the other. Megamind is not. He'll have to explain this to Roxanne; what a fun conversation _that_ will be.

Still, that prospect is less daunting than baring his heart was, earlier, and Megamind managed that just fine, despite the whole time feeling like he was about to break into a hundred thousand sharp-edged shards of nothing worth worrying about.

He can do this. He has—his soulmate, his soulmate who wants to—know him.

He can do this.

Megamind turns toward the door, wincing slightly when his knee twinges in protest; he's still not fully healed from the Typhoon of Terror. He's getting there, of course, but he's also getting older. He doesn't heal as quickly as he used to. And—

He pauses.

—huh. There's a thought. He'll have to ask how long Roxanne was expecting to know him, but if she's serious, if she really is, then…

It's a thought. And it feels surprisingly okay. Something new, yes? And Minion would maybe stop harping at him about retiring one of these days.

* * *

Roxanne's bed is low, set against the wall at the back of her apartment and the wall with her bedroom window. The window reaches nearly to the floor; she likes to sit on her bed and lean back against the glass on warm days. For now, it casts Roxanne's darkened bedroom in cool silvery-gold light filtering up from the city below.

She turns the covers back, then pauses and glances back at Megamind. "Wall side, or room side?"

Megamind sort of freezes. He looks deeply uncertain and uncomfortable in his borrowed pajamas; his arms are crossed over his chest and his shoulders are pulled nearly to his ears. Roxanne's clothes fit him extremely poorly.

"Um," he says. "I…"

"It's not a test," she tells him, trying to reassure. "I have no preference."

He takes a breath, then nods. "Wall side," he says, and quickly shuffles around her so he can crawl into bed and scoot back to make room.

"Please," he adds, as an afterthought. "Thank you."

"The window doesn't open," she warns, because she really wasn't expecting him to reach for the option that might leave him cornered. Megamind blinks at her, then smiles a little.

"I know," he says. "But I…I want. To trust you. And I think, I think the best way to do it might be…try?"

Oh. Roxanne's heart warms. Maybe she had it wrong, then; maybe Megamind is an optimist, if he can do this despite all his previous disappointments. An optimist, just…an injured one, maybe.

She smiles and slips into bed beside him, pulls the covers up. "I'm flattered," she says. "Do you mind if I put my head on your shoulder? Or would you rather I stay over here, for now?"

Megamind looks surprised, but he shakes his head and holds his arm away from his body, and the way he sort of—gasps—when Roxanne settles close at his side and puts her hand on his chest—

"Oh," he says, his voice almost mournful. "Oh. This is nice."

"Yeah, it is," Roxanne agrees, bumping her head around under his sharp clavicle until she finds a good place for her ear. "You can put your arm up around me, if you want—yes, perfect. That's perfect."

This is also. Interesting. Megamind's body is cool, which feels surprisingly good now that Roxanne's lingering chill has finally faded—she's always run on the warm side—but everywhere he's touching Roxanne feels…terribly warm. Tingly.

 _Probably not tonight, body_ , she tells herself. _Baby steps. Little by little_.

She lies still for a while, listening to Megamind breathe, listening to his odd heartbeat and feeling him slowly—finally—begin to relax under her.

So, this is Megamind. The Master of All Villainy. Here in her bed, holding her in his arms. She absolutely was not expecting that, at all, for the first night after they talked—frankly, she thought she would still be too upset to want him to stay.

But even if Minion hadn't dropped him off and left, she might still have offered. She wasn't expecting Megamind to hug her so readily, either, when she moved to put her arms around him. Or for him to shed any tears, or to be so incredibly stressed. The five-month silence was definitely his doing, but he does not seem to have been any happier about it than Roxanne was.

She clears her throat. "This feels…nice."

"A little weird," he says, and Roxanne laughs before he can try to stumble over it and backtrack.

"A little," she agrees. "A little. But it's nice, I like it. You?"

"Yes," he says, immediate. "I do."

Roxanne grins. "Even if it feels a little weird?"

Megamind groans. "I didn't actually intend to say that," he says. "I'm—sorry."

"It's okay." Roxanne rests her hand on his thin chest, on his sternum. His voice sounds amazing with her ear against him. "You know, I've always wondered…how on earth do you manage to speak without thinking? You think _so quickly_ , I know you do."

"There's a lot going on in here." Carefully, Megamind places his hand over hers, curls his fingertips under her palm. Roxanne closes her hand on them, squeezes gently, feels him exhale. "I get…tangled up, sometimes. I don't think in words the way you seem to; it's mostly emotion-concepts and knowledge-concepts. And when there's a lot…" He trails off.

"Huh. That makes sense." Roxanne sighs. "It's funny. I kept thinking about what I was hoping for in general, but I never actually got around to imagining…this. With you. Just lying here."

Megamind hums but doesn't actually respond, and Roxanne thinks he might sound nervous. That's fair; Roxanne isn't sure how she'd react to that, either.

She murmurs, "You really are glad to know I'm your soulmate? You want this?"

"I am. And I—do." He grips her hand harder for a moment, then releases her. "I'm so sorry I let you think otherwise. May I—if I could, I—" Long fingers sift into her hair, hesitant, then with more certainty when Roxanne hums a low affirmative.

His breathing changes; he relaxes just a little more.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you to come back," Roxanne tells him. "Or ask Minion to turn around. We could have had this out months ago."

"You were in shock."

"Mmm." She closes her eyes as Megamind moves his fingers through her hair. No wonder the soulbirds always want head-scritches; this feels lovely. "We both were."

"And I don't think we would have had this out nearly as…precisely, five months ago," Megamind admits. "Without time to think, first."

"Maybe." Roxanne sighs. "But time to think also means time for wounds to fester. Time for resentment to grow. No time to think means…maybe it would have been messier, but I wouldn't have been nearly so upset if we tackled all this back then."

His arm tightens around her back, his hand stills briefly in her hair. "I am sorry."

"I know." She sighs. "It's…I forgive you. There was a lot more going on in your head than I realized. I'll be honest, I still don't really understand all of it."

Megamind is quiet.

Roxanne swallows. "Is there a way," she asks, "for me to ask what you want without making you feel like you're in danger?"

Megamind sort of freezes under her, but then he huffs a laugh. "Sounds to me like you understand it pretty well," he says, wry. "Unfortunately, I don't…know. I don't know."

Roxanne frowns into the darkness for a while, thinking. "If I frame it as a matter of preference," she finally says, "rather than desire. Would that work? Do you think?"

"Maybe," he says, but he sounds doubtful. "It…maybe could? I don't think it would. I think, I think it's just—bringing you in, letting you—see me, know me," he takes a deep breath, "it's—a risk. Risky. But I'll learn," he adds quickly. "I do want to learn. I want to."

Roxanne swallows. "I can't promise I won't ever hurt you," she tells him. "But I can promise I won't want to. No more kicking you in the shins, I promise." She nudges her knee against his skinny calf.

"That's a relief," he says, and she can hear his shy grin as he finally teases her back, just a little. "Some of your shoes are awfully pointy."

Roxanne sniffs, haughty. "Pointy shoes make my ankles look nice."

Megamind snorts. "What are we, Amish? Why do you care about your ankles?"

He's getting more comfortable, she can tell, and she's glad.

It strikes her, then, the weight of this. Their shared history, all their combative verbal sparring and the explosions and deathtraps and Megamind coughing in the smoke of a broken fuel line as he shouted for Minion to get her out of there before it blew. Roxanne in the kidnapping chair, in the invisible car, in Evil Lair, with her hands tied. Nearly four years of that.

Roxanne swallows and turns her face toward him, a little, and presses her nose to the hard plane of his chest under her cheek. She hugs her arm across his body and inhales, smells leather and smoke.

She can relax. She can let herself lean on him, she can—she can let herself be a little less rigidly stoic. Roxanne has been biting back tears all night through sheer force of will, but she's tired, and Megamind is here and he's agreed to try and said he wants this. The relief of that is so suddenly overwhelming that it takes her breath away, and when she gets it back, it shivers in her lungs and catches in her throat.

"Mmph," she says, embarrassed, and pushes her face against his chest.

"Roxanne?" Megamind pauses. "Are you okay? I—you do have nice ankles, I didn't—"

It's Roxanne's turn to snort. "Yeah," she mumbles against him, and chokes out a laugh. "Yeah, sorry, I just…I'm really…it's been a long few months and I'm—finally actually warm? Which is funny because I'm pretty sure your body is cooler than mine." She gulps, sniffs. "Sorry. I'm okay."

Megamind hesitates, then wraps both arms around her and squeezes. It's an awkward hug, inexpertly given but freely offered, and Roxanne aches.

"Hey," she says. "Um. About—the supervillain thing. Can, can I—ask you to do something for me, please?"

He hesitates. "You can ask."

"Please be more careful?" She gulps and lifts herself up onto her elbow to look down at him in the half-light, and Megamind curls the hand that was in her hair against his chest, blinking up at her. She sends him a wobbly smile. "You can be so reckless. And I, I know you are very good at what you do, and I swear I don't mind you being a villain, but you're—god, constantly at risk, constantly in danger. That battle that sent you to the hospital—I was so afraid you wouldn't make it out of there." She rests her fingertips on the plane of his cheek, touches her thumb to the tip of his nose. Megamind tweaks his eyebrows at her.

"I want to spend the rest of my life with you," Roxanne tells him. "I can't do that if you're dead."

Something inside her quails as she says it. It's true enough, but it sounds so _permanent_. Roxanne has never had a relationship that included the immediate possibility of a future, and people tend to run from insinuations of permanence from those who aren't their soulmates. And the emotional intensity of earlier has faded, now; this feels—oddly naked, and Roxanne feels her eyes fill again. She bites her lip, forces herself to let the tears come.

And Megamind's worried expression softens. "I can be careful," he says, earnest and nodding, reaching up to catch her tears on the backs of his uncertain fingers. "I do already try to be careful, usually. But. I can…upgrade my armor. Include backup failsafes."

Roxanne smiles down at him, relieved, and releases a shaky exhale as she nods. "Thank you. That's all I ask."

Megamind swallows. Glances away, then back. "Or…I could…do. Something else? Maybe?"

"Something other than being careful? But what would—"

"Something else entirely."

Roxanne stops breathing.

That. Was actually not a thing she had considered.

When she just stares at him, Megamind clears his throat and tells her, "I would, if you asked me to," and Roxanne feels her face sort of—she tries to smooth her expression but she can't; the fact that Megamind is offering this is—just—beyond anything. Her expression twists and Megamind looks up at her with his lips parted and his eyebrows tweaking up like he wants to help but doesn't know how, and—god, she was even more stressed about this than she realized, because it's all Roxanne can do not to just burst all the way into messy tears.

"You—would you?" She decides to try the hiding-face-against-shoulder thing; Megamind sort of jumps. "That would be—perfect. Not if you don't want to, but if—if you don't mind—I would be so relieved."

His arms slide up around her back. "I don't mind," he says, hesitantly patting her with one long, careful hand as she struggles to get herself back in order. "I am—I have also been thinking. And. I'm not really having much fun anymore, and I'm running out of ways to antagonize Metro Man without…um. Killing him outright? So, no, I would not mind the prospect of trying something else.

"That is, if you're serious about keeping me that long," he adds. "The thought had occurred to me that an early death might…well. You deserve better, and—"

 _What_.

"I deserve the best," Roxanne snaps, lifting her head and glaring at him with her eyes still full of tears. "I deserve the best and that's exactly what I have. No early deaths. No. You're not allowed."

Megamind laughs softly, relaxing. "Very well. Then I shall do…something else! To be determined. Cheating Metro Man out of a girlfriend and a nemesis in one fell swoop, look at me go."

Roxanne snorts, wipes her eyes with the heel of her hand. "How about custom habitats for people with exotic birds?"

He hums. "Possibly. Perhaps that, and...being one of those corrupt philanthropists who secretly runs their city's criminal underworld on the side."

She gives a light laugh and settles back down against him, pushing the _early deaths_ comment to the back of her mind with some effort. Putting it on a shelf next to Minion's _have my own thoughts about the power cells_ and Wayne's _unusually flimsy_ comments.

"What," she says, "like Batman?"

"Like—" Megamind splutters. " _What?_ How in the world is that _at all similar_ to Batman?"

"I'm sure he has a lot of influence in Gotham."

He sounds completely incredulous. "I…I suppose, but…corrupt? Corrupt! He isn't—and he doesn't _run the crime rings in Gotham!_ He does nothing of the sort! He's— _Miss Ritchi_ —"

She's laughing. "Mr. Freeze, then?"

"—what—! You! You are doing this to annoy me!"

"To tease," she says, still laughing. She strokes her hand over his thin chest, rubs an apology up and down his sternum. "Just to tease you. I know you're more of a Brainiac type. Or Lex Luthor—I guess this would be a sort of transition from Silver Age to Golden Age Lex, huh?"

Megamind makes a grumbling noise but subsides. "Something like that," he agrees. "Although I don't know about the whole _businessman_ thing. I suppose I could look into acquiring Scott Enterprises in a hostile takeover…hm."

Roxanne blinks into the darkness as the mental image of Megamind in a suit and tie sears itself into the front of her consciousness. Damn.

He clears his throat and she focuses again.

"Um—but, but circling back," he says, "to the alien…differences. Um. The gills are—one thing, but there is, ah, something else that I should—part of—this. is. something of which you should probably be aware before you commit to—"

"There is literally nothing you can throw at me that will make me rescind my commitment—"

"Sex," Megamind says, and Roxanne stops talking, "is going to involve somewhat less—ah—it is not going to be—what you're used to." He sighs. "I'm—"

Roxanne snaps her head up and cuts him off with "Megamind if you are about to say you're sorry I will stick my thumb straight up your nose," and he bursts into laughter.

"What? You're— _what_ , that's got to be the _weirdest threat I've ever_ —fine, okay, I'm not sorry at all."

"Good," Roxanne says, pleased. "Good. Also, I'll have you know that the first time I ever had sex was in the teeniest-tiniest berth ever, basically a three-by-three-by-six-foot box, so I am pretty sure whatever difficulty you're imagining cannot possibly compare."

He blinks, wrinkles his face in bewilderment. "What, in…inside it? Both of you? _How?_ "

"With lots of swearing," she tells him, leaning on his chest and grinning at him. "I was very bendy and my hips were a lot smaller back then, but there was a lot of swearing and a lot of sweating and I don't think it was very fulfilling for either of us."

"Still," he says. "That sounds impressive."

"Thank you, I thought so." Roxanne pauses, and then thinks, _oh, why not, we're both thinking about it_. "I am still pretty bendy," she tells him, smiling to hide her nerves. "Would you like to see?"

He hesitates. "I'm not sure you'll need it, with me," he begins, and Roxanne remembers—ah, right. No hinting. Right.

"And by 'would you like to see,' I mean 'would you like to maybe have sex with me tonight.'"

Megamind's eyebrows go up and his mouth falls open. " _Oh_ ," he says, after a moment. "Oh, wow. Now? You really—now?"

"Only if you want to," she says. "And I mean that. I'm happy to have you here with me either way. We can also just…make out for a while and see where things go, if you'd rather."

He takes a deep breath. "The problem, first," he says, and swallows. "I am—I don't have—I am incompatible. With you."

Roxanne catches herself _just_ before she says _I don't care about compatible, I just want to kiss you until neither of us can breathe_. Megamind is clearly worried about this.

"Incompatible as in physically dangerous? Or you don't want to?"

"No, I—do want to, I—and no, I won't—hurt you. Probably. It's just." He looks away. "Not anything you would be used to. I'm. Less penetrative, more…frictive. This is not going to be terribly satisfying for you, I'm afraid."

Well that actually sounds like it could be really interesting, but between his _disgusted_ comment earlier and how tense he is about this, Roxanne is going to have to handle this delicately.

She takes a deep breath.

"I want to get this right, too," she says. "I don't want to pressure you, or—"

"I do want to," he says again, sounding wretched. "I just. Doubt this will be exciting for you."

Roxanne bites her lip for a moment, and makes a decision. Full speed ahead.

"Okay, then listen," she says. "And—here. Look at me. Come here, follow—"

Carefully, she guides him to roll over and move so he's lying half on top of her with his elbows on either side of her shoulders. When Roxanne finally settles, with one hand pressed to the small of Megamind's back, the other resting gently on the soft plane of his cheek, and her thigh between his legs, Megamind's eyes are very big.

"Okay," Roxanne says, gazing up at him and speaking slowly and clearly. "Listen. I was not kidding when I said _I want you, Megamind_. That was not conditional on whether you have a dick or not, do you understand? I'm sure I will find you entirely satisfying. You're—"

"I don't see how."

She runs her fingertips down the dip of his spine at his waist. "Do you have hands?" she says, speaking extremely frankly. "And are you willing to put them inside me?"

Megamind boggles. At some point, Roxanne is going to need to figure out how his eyes don't fall out of his head when he bugs them out that way.

"Um," he says, sounding very flustered. "Um. That would—possibly not both at once, but—"

Roxanne snorts. "Yeah, no, not without a _lot_ of preparation," she says. "But there you go, okay?"

He nods, still looking extremely thrown.

"Now, I _do not_ want to do anything that makes you uncomfortable," she rubs her thumb over his cheek, and he swallows, blinks again, visibly pulls himself back into focus, "but I do want you to know that I am not uncomfortable with you at all, and it will be extremely—and I do mean _extremely_ —difficult for you to change that unless you are actively trying."

He's quiet, staring down at her in the glow of the city. Finally he says, soft, "Have you always felt so secure with me."

Roxanne exhales. "Not always. But for a long time, yes." She presses her hand to his back and shifts under him, just a little, and she does not miss the way his breath catches and his eyes darken. "So? Shall we just…try? See where things go? I also wasn't kidding earlier when I said I find you wildly attractive."

"Hm." Megamind gazes contemplatively down at her for a moment.

And then he focuses on Roxanne, fully, and she feels herself go hot. Roxanne has seen him do this before, of course, but Megamind has only aimed his complete attention at her a couple of times over the years. And never from barely half a foot away, while she's pinned under the weight of his body.

"You have kissed me several times, tonight," he says. "A different way, each time."

Roxanne nods. Megamind gulps, then grins, mouth finally curving into his Cheshire Cat crescent-moon smile, teeth and eyes both glinting in the low light. Apparently he has reached a similar decision to Roxanne's.

"I would like to learn _all_ of the ways to kiss," he declares. "Show me."

Roxanne relaxes and laughs, then tips her face up. Megamind bends to meet her, smiling against her mouth.

* * *

Later, lying next to Roxanne in her bed, both of them minus several articles of clothing and plus several new and exciting endorphins, Megamind murmurs, "You've done that before."

"Mm-hm."

"Was I okay?"

Roxanne flops her arm around until she finds his hand and can tangle their fingers together. "You were perfect." She smiles, her eyes closed, her body still tingling pleasantly. "It's funny," she says. "Turns out all that crap about sex being different when it's with your soulmate was…not completely crap, after all. I'm not convinced it's inherent instead of societal or psychological, of course," she adds; "maybe I only feel like it's different because I know you're my soulmate. But that was…"

"Good?"

"Really, seriously excellent." She squeezes his fingers. "I was right to be excited about you."

Megamind looks over at her, lifts her knuckles to his mouth and kisses them, and finally presses the back of her hand to his chest over his heart.

"I should have just talked to you," he sighs. "These past five months were…miserable. I couldn't stop thinking of you. Of what I had done to you." He shakes his head. "I couldn't stand it. Knowing you were stuck with—with your long-term boyfriend's _arch-nemesis_ as your soulmate— _me_ —I was so sure you must hate me."

"I don't think I could ever hate you," Roxanne says. "I know you too well for that. Oh, but speaking of whom…we should probably talk to Wayne," she adds. "The press is going to have a field day when you and I go public; it would be good to give him a heads-up."

"I suppose," Megamind says, but he sounds less than enthused. "Roxanne…I know what you said, earlier, but you two were together for years and you…never loved him?"

She smiles a little at the hopeful note in his voice. "Not the way you're thinking. Wayne is a good friend; I love him just fine that way. Dating him was fine. But no, I never fell for him in the romantic sense."

"But," Megamind says, sounding more uncertain than hopeful, now, "you think…you could love me? Romantically?"

"I do." She rolls over and scoots to him so she can kiss the smooth skin of his chest and then lay her head down on him again. Megamind folds her in against him with only a little bit of awkwardness, hugging her. His arms are strong, but Roxanne can feel him hesitate. "I do. I never even wanted to fall for him; it wasn't like I was trying." She wiggles closer and hugs him back, skin to skin, and finally feels him hum and relax a little bit. "But I want to love you. I'm sure I will, someday. Just…give my heart some time, okay?"

 _I might be close already_ , she doesn't say. But Megamind kisses her hair and then settles back onto the pillow, and Roxanne closes her eyes.

They're both quiet for a while, lying in the warm darkness together. Roxanne dozes, a couple times, but she feels strangely attuned to her new partner, and his breathing never changes.

Eventually one of her drifting thoughts raises its hand, and Roxanne stirs back to consciousness. "Puffins typically mate for life," she murmurs. "Black swans, too."

Megamind hums. "They aren't the only ones."

"I looked it up," she says with a yawn. "The bill-tapping, that's a courtship thing, for puffins. And I've seen Odile do a kind of extended squeak and a neck stretch, and I think she's been trying to nest on Pog's water feature? I think our birds might be…um. Bonded. Wait, what?"

Megamind opens his eyes, wide and gleaming. "They aren't the only ones who mate for life," he says. "I am fairly certain my species does, as well."

Roxanne sits up and gazes down at him, incredulous, but Megamind just reaches up and brushes the backs of his fingers over her cheek. Maybe she was wrong about him not dozing off; his face, for once, is smooth and relaxed.

"That is a hell of a thing to tell me after the fact, Megamind."

"Hm? Oh, no. No, not yet, I think. Not fully. I'm…bonding?" He shakes his head. "I doubt it's a once-and-it's-done thing, but it's hard to be sure. I was already bonding to you, I think; I didn't even realize, before. But something changed, just now, when you came back to lie close to me like this, after we…mm." He smiles a little. "I do feel much more calm, now," he offers. "It's strange."

Well, that's something. It's funny: Roxanne can sort of feel where she should be freaked out that he didn't tell her this until she brought it up, that he's apparently bound to her—or in the process of binding—but all she feels is a vague sort of interest in the fact of it.

Plus, it's not like there's been a lot of time to discuss all this, anyway. But…huh. Maybe there really is something to this whole soulmate thing. Megamind certainly seems rather blissed out.

"Well, that's okay," she says. "I'm here for keeps." She leans down to kiss his mouth, and Megamind meets her halfway, eyes closing as he responds with soft pressure and an even softer encouraging sound.

"Mmm," she says, finally easing back out of the kiss to smile at him and run her fingertips down the side of his neck. "You're a quick study. You're good at that."

"Would you marry me?"

He doesn't actually sound like he's proposing; he mostly just sounds wistful, but Roxanne pauses and blinks at him anyway. His expression is still serene, and a lump rises in Roxanne's throat.

 _Good lord_ , she thinks. _I have actually given this force of total chaos a moment of something that looks like it might be peace_.

And, _no wonder he's been disappointed so many times, if this is how quickly his heart moves_.

"Yeah," she says, smiling and settling back onto his chest. "Yeah, that sounds good. Someday."

"Mm. Yes. Not now. Need to find rings, first. Date for a while."

A while later, he stirs again. "Oh," he says, in the tone of someone who has just remembered something important. "I meant to say. Roxanne. I promise, I won't ever walk away like that again. If we argue—I will stay."

"If you need to step away, 's okay," Roxanne tells him, trying to speak through the haze of sleep that was beginning to take her. "People need space sometimes, that's okay. But…tell me you need some time. Don't just freeze me out without talking to me. Okay?"

Megamind nods. "Yes," he says. "I promise."

"Sleep now?" she asks, yawning. "Will you sleep?"

She feels him hesitate under her.

"I…I don't…"

"Can I help?" When he doesn't answer, Roxanne yawns again and pats him. "Okay. You're okay, whatever you need to do. But try. Please? You're okay here. Safe. Please try. Rest. On the sofa if you have to. Get some sleep."

He nods. "Okay," he whispers. "Okay. I'll…I'll try."

Roxanne kisses his chest again, shifts her knees a little, and her breathing smooths out.

* * *

Megamind stays awake for a while. The light is different than he's used to, and the weight of Roxanne's body against his is unfamiliar.

But her bed is soft, and it smells good. And Roxanne is—here. With him. Warm in his arms under the blankets, because she wants to be here with him, because she wants him. Wants to know him.

Wants to love him.

He's been so cold, these past few months. Bitingly cold, his nose and ears and fingers aching and nearly numb if he wasn't cuddled up to Pog. Roxanne's body is a furnace against him, the closest thing Megamind has ever felt to hearthfire.

He closes his eyes and allows sleep to claim him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did i spend a whole chapter on just cuddling and talking? you bet your ass i did :3


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> small warning: this fic is still rated T, but there's some pretty obvious lead-into-funtimes before the fade to black. not enough to warrant an M rating, but I do feel weird not giving y'all a heads-up.

Roxanne calls Wayne in the morning. He sounds surprised to hear from her but he agrees to come over, and Megamind (who really is going much further, much faster, with this whole _trust_ thing than Roxanne ever, ever would have expected him to) agrees to forgo his armor in order to try to keep this non-confrontational. He only requests a bathrobe of some kind so he won't have so much skin exposed.

He also straps his gun to his leg under the robe, which helps calm his nerves somewhat. Not that it's actually any use against Metro Man himself, but the weight of it at his hip is comforting, and he's used it to escape before. Destroying his surroundings and counting on the hero to block the shrapnel while Megamind makes his escape is something he does with reasonable frequency.

* * *

Wayne breezes in with a gust of cold March wind and closes the balcony door behind his giant soulbird, then turns and—

—stops.

Probably this is because Megamind is in his bare feet in Roxanne's kitchenette, serving himself coffee while wearing Roxanne's fuzzy winter bathrobe with the seahorse and starfish pattern. 

"Uh," says Wayne.

"Morning," says Megamind, grinning cheerfully. Catching his nemesis this far off his guard is not something he gets to do often, anymore. "Bagel?"

"…Sure. Uh. One of the everything ones."

And he does, indeed, look entirely as blindsided as Megamind felt last night when Roxanne offered to make him hot chocolate. Megamind will have to remember this trick. As it is, he just nods and smiles and cuts one of the everything-bagels in half and pops it into the toaster oven and finishes scooping sugar into his coffee.

Then he hops up to sit on the counter next to the sink and keep eating his own bagel, which is a cinnamon-raisin swirl absolutely drenched in butter. Roxanne's bagel of choice is sun-dried tomato, because Megamind's soulmate is a monster, apparently.

"...What's going on?" Wayne asks, drifting in to pretend to sit on one of the spindly chairs at the kitchen island. "I, uh. I kinda figured Roxie was calling to…I guess I dunno why she called." He looks around. "What's up?"

"First off—I found my soulmate," Megamind begins, then pauses to reach into the back of his mouth and dislodge a shred of raisin from between his teeth. "Blegh. Anyway! I found my soulmate and you will _never guess_ who it is."

Wayne presses his lips together as his gaze flicks to Megamind's long throat, which currently sports a few intriguing and telltale kiss-shaped bruises. Megamind tips his chin up and grins at him, swinging his feet and bumping his heels against Roxanne's cupboards. The hollow-wood sound is one he knows Wayne can't stand.

"Is it Minion?" Wayne says, dry.

Megamind scowls and opens his mouth, but it's Roxanne who answers, from her bedroom doorway, "Partly, yes. I don't know if the soul energy is more of a triangle or more V-shaped with me in the middle. But yes."

" _Oh_ ," Megamind says, blinking at her as several things click into place in his mind. The way Laramie greeted Roxanne, mostly, but also how familiar the little penguin has been with Pog despite Odile's obvious claim to him. And possibly Odile’s tolerance of this. "Oh, I—oh, I get it! Oh, but why, why didn't— _that's_ why he's been visiting you! Why didn't he tell me?"

"Because he knew it would hurt you," Roxanne says, "and he thought he could make your stubborn butt see sense some other way."

"I'm not stubborn," he protests, but Wayne and Roxanne chorus, in upsetting unison, "You are the most stubborn person I've _ever met_."

Wayne finishes it with, "except for Roxie," but Megamind flushes anyway, embarrassed.

"Everybody's a critic," he grumbles, and takes another bite of his bagel.

Roxanne takes a deep breath. "Anyway…hi, Wayne. I'm…sorry about our fight. Apparently that thing actually was as flimsy as you said it was."

"Yeah, like I said, I'm not gonna _lie_ to you, Roxie," Wayne says, sounding mildly wounded about the whole thing. "But…thanks? So I guess you two already knew about…this, though," gesturing back and forth between them. "I _thought_ something was up. You don't usually get nearly that upset."

"He doesn't usually nearly die," Roxanne says sharply.

Megamind blinks first at Wayne, then at her. Wait, Roxanne gets upset? With Metro Man? About him? Often enough that a _usually_ exists?

"But yes," she continues. "We knew. We…kind of had a rough start, but yes, I was aware that he was my soulmate."

Slowly, Wayne nods back. "Okay. Okay, uh…huh. Okay. And the rough start is why…"

"Why I didn't tell you, yes."

Wayne is still nodding, his expression sober as he processes this. Finally he sort of takes a breath and says, "I am hurt. That I didn't know. But I do get why you didn't want to get into it. And I get why you were upset. And, and I get that we're going to stay broken-up."

Roxanne winces. "Yeah," she says, more softly. "Sorry."

But Wayne shakes his head. "No, no," he says. "It's…kind of a bummer? But, um. Probably for the best. In the long run. 'Cause if we stayed together, I was gonna have to propose at some point, and I just…"

"Something wrong with marrying Roxanne?" Megamind says, cold.

Wayne glances at him and grimaces. "Not like that," he says. "It's just. I'm not really…look, no offense," he says, looking at Roxanne like he really does hope she's not going to be offended about it, "really. I—I love you. I do. But I…I can't really…"

"Just as friends?" Roxanne says, with a small smile. Off to one side, the toaster oven dings. "Yeah. I get it. Back atcha, baby."

Wayne exhales. "Oh, thank god. Yeah, it's—yeah. And it's not like I didn't try," he adds. "I mean—you're great! Really, really great. But I, I couldn't—" He pauses, then sighs. Slumps. "I couldn't."

Roxanne makes a sympathetic-sounding humming nose and puts the toasted bagel on a plate, slides it over to him, and follows it with the knife and the cream cheese.

And Wayne picks up the knife, but…he stops, then, frowning down at his food

"It isn't poisoned," Megamind offers, when the silence drags out and the hero doesn't move.

Wayne shakes his head. "No, I know. It's just, the news is about to be _all over_ you two," he says. He looks up at them, still frowning. Roxanne has moved over to lean against the counter by Megamind, with her elbow across his skinny knees and her plate in her other hand; Wayne gestures at the two of them. "I mean, supervillain and damsel as soulmates? That doesn't happen. What are the odds? Rhetorically," he adds, when Megamind starts to reply. Wayne shakes his head again. "I believe you, I do, but…it's improbable. You know it is. They'll say you've drugged her, you've brainwashed her, you've got some kinda mind-control beam, you're blackmailing her. And they are going to repeat it every time you appear in public together. Probably for years."

"But you believe me," Megamind says, dubious and not bothering to hide it.

"Yeah, 'cause I know you. But the rest of those numbskulls? They're not gonna let this go, not for a long, long time."

"What if I reform?" Megamind asks, and Wayne pulls up short. "I'm serious. Not, not _completely_ reform," he quickly clarifies, when his nemesis looks alarmed. "But. The _super_ part of supervillain—even villainy, entirely. I'm happy scaling it back to crime boss. That last battle…" He grimaces, briefly grips his knee, rolls his ankle. Something pops in the joint and Roxanne puts her hand over his and squeezes gently. Megamind twitches a smile down at her. "It left me…sort of rattled, I will admit. And it would be nice to go outside without getting shot at. Or tased." He scowls. "I am _so tired_ of getting tased."

"Okay. Yeah. Yeah, you can swing full pardon, easy," Wayne says, still looking somewhat boggled at the idea. "Especially if you work some kinda community service into the deal. Get people thinking better of you that way. It'll be good PR."

Megamind hesitates. "I don't know about a full pardon being _easy_ ," he begins, but Wayne waves at him.

"Nah. You've got this. I, uh. I may have some…information. For you. That may prove useful during…negotiations? I guess?"

Megamind blinks, taken aback. He wasn't expecting the hero to offer something like that. "Oh—? All right. Thank you, I'll…thank you."

"Don't thank me until you see what it is." Wayne grimaces. "Somebody's gotta follow up on it, and it can't be me. Not without…other stuff happening. Besides, I've got no head for this kinda thing, you know that."

"I do indeed," Megamind says wryly.

"Also, uh. On, on the whole…going public. Thing. When were you two thinking of doing this?"

"We haven't discussed timing," Roxanne says. "But I'd like to get it out in the open soon, if we can…?" She turns and looks up at Megamind, who gulps, but nods.

"Yes," he says. "Yes. Soon. Tomorrow? I could—"

"I was thinking more like a week from now," Roxanne tells him, and Megamind relaxes.

"A week," Wayne says, and they look back over at him. He's methodically spreading cream cheese on his bagel. "A week. Okay. Because there's something—how, how would you feel about—divide and conquer? Like, if we offer them another big newsworthy thing at the same time. Split their attention."

Megamind cocks his head. "Don't tell me you're pregnant."

Wayne looks up, blinking. "What? No. I don't think so, anyway. Always kind of a toss-up, with this biology."

Megamind hums, hoping he sounds more sympathetic than he feels. "Curveballs galore. Yes."

Wayne laughs bleakly and rests his elbows on the counter, shifts uncomfortably in his seat. "Yeah. Tell me about it. But I don't know who I would have…that's. Not important." He swallows. "It's just…so, so when Roxie and I split up…they haven't stopped asking about that. Of course. And I got to thinking, it's not such a bad thing. But. If I actually said that? Outside this room?" He swallows. "If I said it wasn't a bad thing that my girlfriend of four frickin' years broke things off with me…"

He stops.

"They would ask why," Roxanne says quietly.

Metro Man looks at her. Blinks. Frowns, then starts to shake his head in disbelief as realization dawns.

"It's okay, Wayne," she says.

"You already knew," he says, staring at her. "You… _how in the hey_ …"

"I suspected," she corrects him.

"For how _long?_ "

She squints into the middle difference. "Three…and a half? Years? It was New Years Eve, 2005."

Wayne's jaw drops. "That's—Roxie, that's basically the whole time we have been dating! That's—is _that_ why you kept turning down sex?"

Megamind chokes on his bagel and breaks into a fit of coughing. Shaking her head, Roxanne turns to get him a glass of water.

"That, and the fact that you just never seemed enthusiastic about…anything, ever." She shrugs. "Baby, every time we did _anything physical_ , it was like you were just going through the motions. I didn't want to push that. It's not like I was unhappy."

He's still staring at her. "You knew. I can't believe it." He pauses. "Is it…is it weird if I say thanks for dating me anyway?"

Roxanne hands Megamind his glass; he accepts it with a grateful nod and takes a few gulps. She slides another one across the island to her ex-boyfriend. "I don't know about weird. But you don't need to thank me. You're a good friend; I had fun. Even if it was...awkward, at times."

"Um," Megamind rasps, waving a hand and still sort of coughing. "Um. Can I just. Ask. I'm missing something, here. Like a really, really big footnote. Can somebody clue me in?"

Roxanne looks at Wayne, who swallows.

"So," he says, and stops.

Silence.

"You'll have to say it at some point, if you're offering to help us with our thing," Roxanne finally says. "Might as well start here, with friends."

Friends? Plural? That's a stretch.

But Metro Man nods. "Yeah. I know. It's just." He turns back to Megamind and spreads his hands. "Look, um. Little buddy. I'm—"

He stops again, sort of grimacing as he looks away. Megamind cocks his head, confused—and then he thinks of something, thinks _oh, maybe_ , and he flips his bathrobe up so he can pull his gun from its holster around the leg of his sweatpants. He sets this down on the counter and very carefully pushes it away from himself, trying to keep his expression even as he does so. Wayne's eyes track the movement, then flick to Megamind, who lifts his eyebrows and blinks at him.

Wayne's face scrunches suddenly. "I'm—gay," he blurts, and Megamind's eyebrows go even higher and his mouth falls open. Wayne sort of nods a few times, looking pained, and runs his tongue over the fronts of his teeth behind his lip. "I'm gay," he says again, and shrugs, still with his face all scrunchy; Megamind is not sure what that's about. This is not a surprise to Wayne, surely?

"Oh, hon," Roxanne says, and starts to move forward—and then she glances at Megamind like she's waiting for something.

"What are you looking at me for?" The smile she flashes at him tells him that was even more of a correct answer than he was expecting it to be. Not difficult, because Megamind wasn't expecting it to _be_ a right answer, or even an answer at all.

He stares after Roxanne in bewilderment as she moves around the kitchen island and reaches up to Wayne, who picks her up against his huge chest.

Oh, she was—looking for a go-ahead? From him? Maybe?

 _That_ doesn't make sense.

"Hey," Roxanne is saying, her arms around Wayne's thick neck. "I'm so proud of you!"

He has his chin sort of hooked over her shoulder and his teeth are bared like he's in pain. Megamind glances down at his water glass; the surface is dancing with a vibration he can't hear.

Ah. Was that maybe the first time he's said it out loud? At least in front of anyone?

"Let's not rattle my blood at close range," Roxanne says, patting Wayne's shoulder, and he nods.

"Yeah—sorry, let me just—I can—"

He eases her away from himself a little and heaves in a breath (Megamind's water jumps higher, then falls to a shivery sort of nothing pattern). Roxanne lays her hands on his cheeks and looks at his eyes. "I am so proud of you," she says again.

He nods.

"And I'm sorry," she continues. "I don't know, maybe I should have broken up with you years ago. I couldn't tell what the right thing was, and I just…anyway. Not about me. I'm bi, if it helps. Here, we'll trade."

He gasps a laugh. "Thanks," he whispers. "Nah, Roxie, you were great. Best girlfriend a gay superhero could want. I should've known something was up, you never seemed like you needed frickin' _anything_."

"You're bi?" Megamind says. Roxanne glances over at him with a sort of quasi-expression he doesn't entirely know how to parse, so he just shrugs and says, "Me too."

Wayne snorts. "Guess that's all of us, then. God." He scrubs a hand down his face. "Anyway. Hey, I'm gay. And we're still friends?"

Roxanne nods. "Yeah, still friends. We're good."

He studies her for a moment. "You're sure? It's just, I know this is the kind of thing that really wrecks people, so…"

She shrugs and taps him again so he puts her down. "I mean," she says, heading back towards her bagel and her soulmate, "yeah, if I didn't already suspect it, if I really was in love with you…yes, in that case, I would be an absolute mess. And I do love you," she adds, "you know I do, but I am not _in_ love with you. So. No harm, no foul."

She picks up her bagel and tips her face up at Megamind, who freezes—but—oh, he catches Wayne tapping his lips in his peripheral vision, so he quickly leans down and kisses her—and Roxanne hums contentedly and leans back against the counter and his legs to finish her breakfast.

Good, apparently that was correct.

Megamind catches Wayne's eye, uncertain, but Wayne just sends him an awkward sort of half-smile and a shrug. Which, fair. Wayne's known him almost all his life; he knows when Megamind is about to trip on something. Being helpful about it is new, but. The times, they are a-changing.

"Really are the best friend I ever had," Wayne tells Roxanne. He nods at Megamind. "Little buddy, you are insanely lucky, do you know that? Roxie's actually what confirmed it for me, once and for all, 'cause I thought…man, if I was gonna be bi for anyone, I was really hoping it'd be her. You're a lucky guy."

Across the room, Rime has apparently decided to just ignore Odile rather than force Pog to keep trying to placate the two of them. She comes fluttering over and awkwardly hops up onto Wayne's shoulder, tipping her head to fix Megamind with a suspicious gaze. Wayne lifts his hand to run his fingertips down the golden stripe on her bill.

"I am very lucky," Megamind says, curling his buttery fingers into his palm and brushing his knuckles over Roxanne's hair, instead. "Yes, I am aware."

Roxanne swallows and puts down her empty plate. "Wayne," she says, putting her arm back across Megamind's knees and leaning sideways against his legs like it's the most natural, normal thing in the world for her to do. "As long as we're discussing uncomfortable truths…can I say something?"

He shrugs. "Sure, yeah. Shoot. Hey, stop that." Rime has just bitten him.

She clears her throat, awkward. "I…am really not sure that albatross was meant for you."

Wayne is quiet, nodding slowly.

After a moment, he looks over at her. "I don't think she was, either."

That's almost more surprising than the gay thing. "Excuse me?" Megamind says. "Not meant for—she is perfect for him! Look at her colors, look at the—she's _majestic_ , how is she not a bird for a superhero?"

"That's kinda the thing, though," Wayne says. "She's perfect for Metro Man. Except, uh. I don't…I can't be this, anymore. Everybody said it's what I was supposed to do, and then I got Rime, and she seemed like…I dunno, a confirmation? Of sorts?"

Megamind blinks. Maybe he's misinterpreting the hero's tone—it wouldn't be the first time—but…

"You don't actually like your job at all, do you?"

Wayne shakes his head. "Honestly, if you're retiring from villainy," he says, as Megamind gapes at him, "I wouldn't mind giving the hero gig a rest, too." His lips twist. "You know, just disappoint the city on all fronts in one go."

"Hey," Roxanne says. "I happen to know there are a lot of people who will be _thrilled_ their hero is gay."

"Yeah, except he doesn't want to be a hero."

She shrugs. "So? I can't think of a better way to say you can be yourself, whoever that is, even if other people want something different for you."

Megamind recovers himself and clears his throat. "Met—Wayne," he says. "If you are serious about coming out when Roxanne and—and Minion and I go public, that really could help draw some attention away from us. But you and I…we don't exactly have a history of being helpful to each other."

Wayne shakes his head again. "I'm tired of that. I'm really…I'm just tired. I'm tired of beating on you and I'm tired of Minion hating my guts and I'm _so sick_ of, of hearing people screaming. I swear, a couple more years of this and I'm gonna just disappear into the mountains and be some kinda hermit."

"How many?" Roxanne asks, quiet, and he glances at her.

"Right now? Seven." Then his expression changes, sharpens. "—Six. Crap, I have to go."

"Finish your breakfast," Roxanne says.

"I don't have _time—_ "

"Yes, you do," she says calmly. "And you know it."

He glances at Megamind—

—and then he says, " _Ugh, fine_ ," and rolls his eyes and sandwiches the two halves of his bagel together—

—and the front of his face opens up from the nose down into teeth and teeth and a smaller set of jaws that snap up from his throat to grab the whole bagel and pull it down behind his long red tongue.

Wayne closes his mouth and swallows.

Megamind recovers himself with a significant effort. "Tomorrow night, eight o'clock, Evil Lair," he says as Metro Man turns away. "Minion will make dinner and we'll all make a plan."

"I have a meeting at eight."

"It'll be rescheduled," Megamind says smoothly, hopping down from the counter and retrieving his gun, holstering it on his leg. "Along with whatever else you have going on. Go."

Wayne goes. Rime sails after him, knocking one of Roxanne's potted plants over on her way past.

Roxanne gazes after them, shaking her head. "I worry about him," she says, sighing as she takes the dustpan and whisk broom from under the sink to go and clean up the spilled soil and displaced pothos.

"I don't," Megamind says, frowning and setting the issue of Wayne's face aside for the time being, "but I'm thinking I should maybe start. He hears screams? Constantly?" At Roxanne's nod, he frowns harder. "I realize I am not exactly a shining example of good mental health, but that _cannot possibly_ be healthy."

"If you can come up with a solution, I'm sure he'd love one." She sighs. "He's talked about retiring before, but…I mean, when you can't stop hearing a whole city calling for help, how do you say no? It's the one sense he's never really figured out how to get a handle on. We're pretty sure there's a way—his homeworld can't have been silent—but—"

"I'm not so sure," Megamind says, looking at his water glass where he set it on the counter. "When he cries, it's infrasonic. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of his language was, too, and depending on the subgravitational interference…well. I'm not sure."

Roxanne straightens and blinks over at him. "Wayne doesn't cry."

"He does," Megamind assures her. He trots over and holds the planter steady for her as she arranges her plant's roots and settles the dirt back where it belongs. "Or, well…he expresses significant emotional distress at infrasonic frequencies. You can't hear him. Neither can I, but I know how most of his biology works, at this point. With the exception of the mouth thing, just now," he adds. " _Great googly moogly_ , by the way, what a horror show, but it does answer several questions I've had about his digestion. …Why is there more dirt now than before Rime knocked it over?"

She smiles a little. "It's just not packed as tightly, now. Thanks." She takes the planter and settles it back where it goes.

Then she turns toward him, and carefully puts her arms around his shoulders. "I'm so sorry about all of that."

He blinks at her. "All of what?"

"Me being physical with my ex. Relationship talk. I told him I love him."

Megamind frowns. "Well, you do," he says. "You explained this yesterday. And you had a long-term relationship with him. It's not like any of that was a surprise." This is entirely reasonable, he feels, because Roxanne and Wayne were basically best-friends-but-dating for six years and now it sounds like they're best-friends-but-not-dating. Of course she loves him—but Roxanne's face does a thing and she blinks hard for a moment before she leans in to give him a kiss.

Which he is not complaining about, but he is still confused a second later when she withdraws. Kissing does not convey flashes of insight, more's the pity.

"I don't understand," he says. And Roxanne does the face thing _again_ —she presses her lips together and her nostrils flare and she sort of smiles and tips her head—

"I know," she says, and lifts a hand to rub her hand over the side of his cranium. "That's pretty obvious."

He flushes at that, hurt, but—

"Apparently you do not have a jealous bone in your body," Roxanne says, smiling like this is a good thing, like the fact that Megamind is completely baffled about this whole exchange is good. "That means a lot. Thank you."

"I'm—that isn't—a thing I can control, Roxanne," he says slowly. "It isn't a _thank-you_ thing."

She's still smiling, though. "Yeah," she says, "but neither was Pog, and I'm grateful to you for him, too. You don't always have to do something intentionally in order for people to appreciate you."

He frowns. "People _don't_ appreciate me," he says, without really thinking about it. "It's never really seemed to matter what I do."

Roxanne leans in again, and this time she cups his jaw with one hand and steps into his space, licks into his mouth, cups the back of his neck with her other hand and squeezes gently so Megamind's breath catches. He can—rest one hand on her waist, slip his other hand down a little—pull her hips against him that way, make her hum into him in response—

They're both a little breathless when they finally break the kiss.

"I appreciate you," Roxanne says.

"So I see," Megamind agrees, and catches her mouth with his own, again.

* * *

"It's a good thing your couch was already broken," Megamind says, later, reclining against her warm chest, "but you should probably flip the cushions." Roxanne laughs and presses her lips to his shoulder, then the side of his neck, then his ear.

"You're really going to have to come up with some kind of auditory dampener for Wayne," she says, sounding rueful. "I've never had to think about it before. But. I'm naturally kind of loud, and…"

Megamind starts to laugh. "And he hears _everything_ ," he says, chagrined. "Oh, yikes. Yes, definitely I will have to find some kind of solution there."

Then he tips his head back onto her shoulder so he can look at her face. "Wait. This was you holding back?"

She bites her lip, nods.

"Goodness," Megamind says, grinning. "I may need some kind of auditory dampener, as well. —Hey! hey! don't _bite!_ Now, don't start something you can't finish—oh— _oh-h_ —"

"Who said anything about not finishing it," Roxanne murmurs against his shoulder, and bites him again.

* * *

"I wonder where Minion is," Roxanne says, a while after that. "Wasn't he supposed to show up, at some point?"

Megamind shrugs. "There's a brainbot on your balcony," he says. He is lying beside her, now; they've made it back to bed. The pillow has gone missing; his long neck is supported by Roxanne's arm, instead. "I'm sure they're keeping him appraised of when it will be safe. You...hmm." He pauses. "He's…also your soulmate."

"He is," Roxanne says. "Platonically, we think."

"That would explain Laramie," Megamind says, and then he's quiet for a while.

Roxanne has to wonder. He's not jealous of Metro Man, but is Minion different?

"Well...that's a relief," Megamind says, finally. "My feelings on soulmates were...complicated, but I don't think Minion has ever relished the prospect of that kind of pair bond. A romantic one. I don't think his people ever..." 

He trails off.

"Anyway, it's a relief," he finally says. "To know he isn't waiting on someone."

"And you don't mind?" Roxanne asks. "Sharing me?"

Megamind snorts. "What, with Minion? Evil heavens, no!" He shakes his head. "No, I...Roxanne, I hope this doesn't sound...bad. I hope. But, but last night, you said I would know I was safe, someday. With you. And...I might not be there, yet, but," he takes a deep breath, "I do know that Minion is. Safe with you. And that means more to me than I hope you ever realize."

Roxanne is quiet. Megamind swallows and keeps talking, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. 

"Besides, you two always seemed to get along. Frankly, I thought you might be his soulmate when you met Laramie and you both just lit up talking about your birds. And I, I was jealous then," he admits. At his side, Roxanne finally makes a soft sound and shifts a little closer to him. Megamind smiles a little and feels himself relax. "I didn't like it. Feeling that way. It felt wrong, feeling that way about Minion. And—now I don't have to! So no, I do not mind _at all_ sharing you platonically with Minion." 

"Oh, good," Roxanne sighs. "I've been worried."

Megamind tips his head sideways to blink at her. "And you," he says, "you truly do not mind the alien thing, do you."

"Mmm. _Mind_ is not the word I would use, no."

"Incredible." He gazes up at her ceiling and heaves a sigh, feeling a lack of tension he hasn't experienced in more than a decade. "You are incredible." _I love you_ , he thinks, but he would prefer not to pressure her. She requested time; he can give her time. It's enough to have her here, with him, wanting him.

Roxanne chuckles. "I don't know about _incredible_. I'm currently having some difficulty constructing what feels like it should be a really, really easy pun."

Megamind tips his head again and looks over at her, finds her already grinning at him.

"Something-something-Megamind, something-something-Mind-blowing," she says, and he bursts into startled, delighted laughter and rolls over to throw his arm across her for a hug before he can even think about it.

He catches himself just a second too late, but—it's okay, right? This is hardly the most intimate thing he's done today, right?

"Incredible and _ridiculous_ ," he says, staying the course and cuddling closer than he dares. He lays himself down sort of like Roxanne did last night, with his cheek on her chest, but he makes sure to fit the swell of his skull to the curve of her shoulder so she isn't bearing the full weight of his head. And he hopes— _please_ —

She wraps her arm up around his back and slides her other over his head to stroke her thumb across his high cheekbone, and then she rests it on his shoulder and sort of squeezes gently. The relief of that is enough to start tears in his eyes. Oh, thank god; this is something he is allowed to do, then. He isn't going to be let down or spurned for wanting more contact.

She hums, her voice buzzing under his ear. "You know, if you put my leg between your knees, you can…yes, like that. That's better, right?"

Megamind gulps, suddenly so overwhelmed with _love/relief/joy-joy-joy_ he can barely stand it. "Yes," he whispers. "Yes, that is better."

She lifts her head. "You okay? Whoa, hey—you don't have to tense up, it's okay—" She rubs her hand up and down his arm, bends her head to press her cheek to his high forehead. "What's wrong?"

Megamind shakes his head a little, swallows hard. "Nothing is wrong," he tells her, with complete honesty. "I have quite literally never been better."

Roxanne pauses—then—

"Oh," she murmurs, and rolls her body towards him so they're both on their sides, now, and wraps her arms around him: one over his side, the other under the curve of his neck, still, and bent up arpund his shoulders. "Oh. Okay."

Crap. Apparently she took his 'literally' literally. Well, it's too late to go back, now, and Megamind's treacherous heart has betrayed him anyway. It's been an overwhelming couple of days, after a grueling five months, but he gulps again and tries to gather himself and explain. "It's just, today has been—you're being—you are being so sweet to me, and I just—"

"It's okay," she says softly, kissing his forehead. He whines at her. "I'm glad to know it's good for you. I'm just…trying. I don't know what I'm doing, either; I'm just trying to take your cues and run with them. I hope that's okay."

He nods. "Yes, yes, it's okay—I'm okay. I want—I still feel—being your soulmate, I know you said you're _excited_ , you're excited to—to be with _me_ —but—"

"Excited, thrilled, delighted," she says. "Yes."

" _Yes_ ," he says, sounding oddly anguished even to his own ears, and squeezes her hard with the arm he has over her body, the one that isn't squished between them. "You— _yes_ is not something I ever—thought—and I was, I was _horrible to you_ , I was—"

Roxanne sighs. "We went over this last night. You know it's okay. Yes?"

He nods.

"I can't make you feel forgiven," she tells him. "But you are. Really."

He swallows. "I know. I know. I just, I never even—apologized properly. For walking away. Leaving you."

He feels her sort of pause. "You didn't? But you…no, I'm sure you said you were sorry. We were lying right here."

"Not _properly_ ," he insists, stomach twisting, "not—I should tell you—I know what it is, I know how it—goes, how it feels when you want something and you aren't allowed even to try for it. I know what that feels like, it's terrible. I am so sorry I did that to you."

"It's okay," she says. "Really, it is. We fixed it."

"And I'm sorry I was so difficult," he continues, "when you were trying so hard for—for us, for this. I couldn't—hear you, I couldn't hear you. I'm sorry."

She squeezes him. "It's okay."

"It's _not—"_

"It is," she says firmly. "Yes, it is, because you are the one saying sorry, which means I am the one who says whether it's okay. And I say it's okay. Whether _you feel_ like it is or not…I'll try to help with that, but ultimately that one is your dragon to tame."

He sighs, nods. Roxanne rubs a hand down his spine and Megamind curls a little tighter around his aching heart. 

"Megamind," Roxanne says. "Did you know _you_ are actually very sweet?"

He snorts against her chest; he can't help it.

"You are," she insists. "Really. Letting Pog stay at Evil Lair through the ice storm—"

"He could have died!"

"—giving me and Minion time to chat before the evil plots get going? I know you don't have to do that—"

"I like talking to you then, too! That's hardly altruyistic."

"—and this morning, disarming yourself to set Wayne at ease—"

"That was a symbolic gesture and you know it; the de-gun has never been a threat to him."

She pokes him in the side. "And now you're all upset because you wanted to be more specific in your apology, and you are _extremely attentive_ in bed. You don't have to intend these things to be sweet, Megamind. You couldn't even figure out why I might expect you to be jealous of your soulmate telling her ex-boyfriend that she still loves him."

He growls. "What is your point?"

She begins to rhythmically stroke the back of his head with her fingertips, over and over, very lightly. Megamind feels himself shudder and then go boneless, tingles rising like carbonation throughout his body.

"My point is," she says, "I think the stuff you've learned to expect in life is…I don't think you've been treated very fairly. I'm not going out of my way to give you anything special, right now. I'm just…this isn't…you keep saying I'm being sweet to you, and...well, of course I am. You're a sweet guy."

Megamind huddles closer, curling his fingers against her skin. He feels Roxanne hesitate, but then she moves her arm on the mattress so she can palm the back of his head and hold him close.

At _that_ , helpless fear stabs through him. On his side like this, with his forehead in front of Roxanne's mouth, her arm around his skull holding him in place…his head is pretty much entirely under Roxanne's control. If she gripped him with her other arm, too, all it would take is a particularly sharp twist and she could easily snap his neck.

But she doesn't. All she does is splay her hand over the back of his cranium, and kiss his forehead, and continue to pet him gently, front to back.

Megamind lies quietly, body limp and eyes closed, waiting. It isn't that he can't bring himself to move—he knows the danger, can feel it—and he certainly isn't outside himself. Almost the opposite of that. He is fully settled in his bones. It's just that Roxanne is stroking his head, and it feels nice, and fear or no fear, Megamind doesn't ever want it to end.

"You deserve to be treated with basic human decency," Roxanne says, after a while, "and I realize we're only just starting to really talk, but…I kind of don't think you have been, if just holding you can move you to tears this way."

"Not _just_ that," he mumbles. Oh, is he…is he crying? He didn't realize.

"Can you tell me what it is?"

He stirs. _You could kill me and you don't want to_ , he doesn't say. "You're…not put off by me. My body. You…" He swallows. "Are you really okay about touching my head like this? No don't stop don't stop _please_ don't stop—it feels—"

"Good?"

"It feels—" He pauses again, helpless to explain, and mumble-hums _affection_ at her. She shifts even closer to him at that; god, his subvoice isn't remotely human and she moves _closer_. "—It feels—nice. It feels like. Rain on a window when I'm wrapped in a clean blanket straight out of the dryer."

"Warm? Safe?"

"Warm," he says. "Not safe. But…a together-thing. Affectionate."

Roxanne is quiet for a second, but she keeps stroking his head. Finally she asks, "Can I make it feel safe for you? Somehow? Is that something that has to come with time, or can I do anything?"

"Mm. No. With time, I think. I do trust you," he sighs, "already, in some respects. But physically…"

He trails off, feeling silly.

But Roxanne doesn't say anything about how he'll have sex with her without trusting her, and she doesn't push him. She just brushes another kiss over his expansive forehead and continues to pet him. 

"That's okay," she says, in the contented tone of someone who has just decided something. "I'm okay with warm and affectionate."

Megamind hums at her and lies bonelessly with his head in her arms, and basks.

* * *

Eventually she starts moving her fingertips back and forth, rather than from front to back, and at that, the fizzy tingling in Megamind's body smooths into a single hum of sensation, like plucked string on a guitar or a harp.

And Megamind—

—considers telling her to stop, considers telling her not to, but—

He would prefer she not know about this, yet. How to put him in this state intentionally. With any luck, she'll think he's just fallen asleep.

After a while, she stops and murmurs, "Hey. You awake?"

He is. He just can't speak. Or move.

"Aw," Roxanne whispers, and hoists herself up on one elbow and kisses his temple. "Okay."

She rustles around for a moment while Megamind waits, wondering and—and oh this was a bad decision this was very very bad, he should have told her, should have stopped her. Fear rises and grips him and he's going to—

Her hand on his shoulder, nudging him onto his back, no no no no—

—oh. Other hand on the side of his head, rolling it with his body so he doesn't strain his neck. Oh good—

—hand under his neck (spike of yespleasure at this), slide of pillow—

Roxanne chuckles. "Man, you are _out_. Okay, shower time."

The mattress shifts a little, and a blanket comes up and settles over his chest.

no come back

don't go

on my back can't move bad combo didn't think of that

come back

help

"Odile?" Roxanne says, surprised, when the swan comes limping to nudge the door open. "Sweetheart, no, you need to rest. Or…oh, did you want to nap with him?" Odile is limping over to Roxanne's bed. She shakes her head, fond. "Here, I'll give you a boost. Scoop!"

She lifts Odile up and settles her next to Megamind—

—and then she stops, because Odile has just bent her neck around and bitten Megamind's hand. Rather viciously, in fact.

"Hey!" Roxanne hisses, waving her hands at the swan. "Hey, no! He's sleeping, leave him alone!"

Odile fluffs the feathers on her neck and lunges at her, beak wide open in a puffin's threat. Roxanne jumps and yanks her hand back, and Odile darts her head down and bites Megamind's fingers, shakes her head, bites him again. And again.

"What are you _doing_ ," Roxanne says, staring at her. Odile certainly does appear to be doing something.

On the bed, Megamind's fingers twitch and he lets out a sound like a wheeze.

"N't sleebn," he rasps. His fingers twitch again.

"What—"

Oh. Oh, something is—something is wrong? He isn't—

Alarmed, she crawls back up onto the bed opposite Odile and takes his other hand, pinching and squeezing his fingers. "Megamind? Hey," she grips his hand in one of hers and places her other on his cheek. "Hey, are you okay? Are you hurt?"

"Nnnnn," he says, which is probably _no_ , which is good.

She keeps pinching and massaging his fingers until his eyelids flutter and he groans.

"What happened?" Roxanne asks, staring down at him. "What—did you—have a seizure? Megamind, what was that?"

He gazes up at her for a moment, then squeezes his eyes closed. "Sorry," he whispers. "Didn't. Didn't mean to worry you. I thought I could handle it."

"But what _was_ it?"

He moves his shoulders, rolls his head on the pillow. "Tonic immobility," he manages. "It's. Rubbing my head from back to front puts me into a sort of…trance state. Physically."

"A trance state," Roxanne says flatly, and he nods a little. "You just…you just laid there and let me _paralyze you_. Megamind—"

He squeezes her hand weakly. "I'm sorry," he says, in a kind of hollow voice. "I thought, I thought I could handle it."

She stares at him until he finally struggles up into a sitting position and runs a shaking hand down Odile's neck.

Roxanne takes a deep breath, and Megamind flinches. _Please don't be mad_ , he wants to say, but—that isn't fair.

She doesn't yell, though. All she says is, "Give me your hands."

He does so, and she frowns down at them for a moment.

"I know," she says eventually, "that there are things you can't tell me, yet. And I know you're one to push yourself to see where your limits are. But. If I do something that has the potential to hurt you, I need to know."

"It doesn't hurt," he begins, but she shakes her head.

"No. No. But it—it puts you in a position where you can be hurt, and if I don't know about it—and I know, I know you probably don't want me to know how to render you _fucking immobile_ , Megamind, because that is a _giant_ liability for you and I don't blame you for not wanting to share that with me on day two of our relationship. But…" She pauses, chews her lip for a moment, then lifts her gaze to his face, and Megamind is astonished to see tears standing in her eyes.

"I do not want to hurt you," she says. "Our shin-kicking days are over. I know we'll probably have some missteps, and that's okay, but I don't want—I don't ever want to hurt you. That includes freaking you out and making you feel even more unsafe than you do already. Okay? I need to know you'll warn me. You didn't say anything about mating for life and you didn't say anything about putting you into that state—"

"Those are my issues to deal with," he protests. "Those are—my responsibility, Roxanne."

"Yes, but I want us to be a team," she says, her gaze flicking back and forth between his eyes. "I want to know how to help you. If I start moving toward something that could cause you distress—I want to know. Please. I want to be on your team, I want you on my team. Please."

Slowly, he nods. "I will try," he says. "Um. If, if that happens again? Leave me on my side. On my back and unable to move is…" He grimaces. "Very much not good for me. For reasons I would prefer not to get into."

Roxanne exhales. "Okay. Okay, thank you; that is exactly the kind of thing I would want to know. Thank you."

He hesitates. Roxanne squeezes his fingers, and he looks at her. "I don't do well with frog jokes," he says. "Science class, frogs, dissection. I'm…it's a thing. Aliens, research. You know."

She nods, relief in her expression. "Okay," she says again. "Copy that, ten-four. Will also steer clear of discussion about that stuff. I don't think I have any troublesome topics, but I will let you know if I think of any."

"Jokes too. Not just discussion."

After a long, long moment of staring hard into his eyes, Roxanne's hands tighten around his.

"I _am_ _not_ ," she says, in a tone that Megamind is pretty sure means she's upset and trying to hide it, "going to _joke_ _about things that_ _hurt you_."

Hm.

Megamind squints at her. "This is one of those 'bare minimum of human decency things' again, isn't it?"

She nods. Her smile doesn't reach her eyes, but she leans forward and presses a kiss to his head as she stands up.

"I'm going to take a shower," she says.

He hesitates. Is that code, or…

"You can join me if you want to." Her smile this time appears to be genuine. "I'm pretty much drained, I think, but sometimes it's nice to just…"

Megamind bites his lip, but nods and starts to stand.

Roxanne puts her hand on his shoulder. "Only if you want to," she says. "I'm not going to be upset if you don't."

He takes a deep breath. "I'd like to nap," he admits. It's not something he does often, but he has no access to his projects and he is still exhausted from five months of fleeing from himself and from Roxanne. He slept last night, but not well.

She smiles. "Then nap," she says. "We've both had a long few months. Here."

She straightens out the covers with Odile still sitting on top, then turns them down for him and waves him down between the sheets. And she tugs the blankets up over his chest, and she kisses his forehead again.

 _I love you_ , Megamind thinks again, as she straightens, but he just twitches a shallow smile at her and closes his eyes.

And breathes out.

* * *

Roxanne cries in the shower, careful to do so as soundlessly as possible. It's just—

Megamind wants her back. He wants her as his soulmate, he wants her in his arms, in his bed, maybe in his heart. Roxanne wants him in her life, and he wants her, too. They have a chance. The relief of that is unbelievable.

But.

Roxanne knew, of course, that the man must have some issues. He is a supervillain; you don't choose that as a career path without a reason. But the _fear_ in him, the flinching and the freezing, the hesitation—Roxanne was not expecting that. Especially, _especially_ not in combination with how gently focused of a lover he's turning out to be. It feels like such a contradiction.

But then, Megamind always was a surprise. He never would stay down, ever, no matter what happened. And he does not do anything halfway.

 _Odile is used to defending me_ , he said, and _I know when a disappointment will hurt more than I know what to do with_ , and _wanting is fuel for mockery_. And he has mentioned, more than once, not joking about certain things.

 _On my back and unable to move_ , he said; and _frogs, dissection_ , he said. And maybe those two things are entirely unrelated, but _fuck_ , oh god, if they're connected...the implication of that is quite literally the stuff of horror movies.

Roxanne is pretty good at filling in blanks. Megamind has been hurt, badly. And repeatedly. Intentionally, it sounds like, psychologically at least, if not physically.

(Pog hops into the shower with her and she puts up a token protest, but Roxanne has long since stopped caring whether her soulbird sees her naked. He splashes around by her feet in the water, croaking happily and keeping out of the way of Roxanne's bird-safe soap and shampoo.)

She does not want to be someone who hurts her soulmate. Not ever. Pog's sweet personality is something Roxanne has always wondered about. She had hoped that was her own soul's influence, but after a few hours of _really finally talking_ with Megamind…she's pretty sure it isn't entirely her. She's pretty sure there's a lot more of her in Odile than there is in Pog.

And she is not at all surprised to find that her soulmate has a swan. Her parents used to tease her when she was a child acting up, _your soulmate will have an angry goose, a Canada goose, you wait and see_. Turns out they weren't entirely wrong; they just never understood what made Roxanne lash out. Certain species of geese are hot-headed and quick to act, unlikely to wait and see if something is a threat. Swans, on the other hand, hold back until pushed too far, and then they give no ground until they gain satisfaction. They are not violent birds, but they are vengeful.

Roxanne has hurt Megamind in the past; she can't change that. But she is bound and determined to stand by him now. Megamind isn't the only one in this relationship who takes no prisoners and gives no quarter. He isn't the only one who's ruthless. And when he is pardoned, and the media goes for his heart or his throat, Roxanne will keep her partner safe with a swan's particular thirst for bloody vengeance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> little uncertain about this one. i have NO idea how to write "i dated a gay dude for like 4ish years and like, i knew he was gay but he didn't know that i knew and it is honestly totally fine because we're bros" but hopefully it went ok!
> 
> also, Megamind being so chill about sharing in this fic was...not a thing i was expecting, but fuck if i can change it. it is what it is and I have some ideas about how to play with it in Fins.
> 
> anyway. hope you enjoyed! i love you!


	11. Chapter 11

Megamind comes back to himself alone in a bed that is not his own, waking with a sharp shock of alarmed _oh-god-what-where_ , but a second later he smells where he is and his memories slot into place and he eases back out of his tension.

Hmm. Possibly the smell of Roxanne's bed is why he had no dreams? Despite the tonic immobility mishap? It's a good sign, if so.

Doubly good because Roxanne did not hurt him, she let him rest. She held his hands and declared them a team and so far has done nothing to contradict herself.

Megamind does already trust her far more than he ought to. This has always been his problem, always: he trusts easily, loves easily, and is consistently scorned for it. He has spoken with other villains on the subject, and he is apparently the odd one out in this—they trust no one but themselves, in a way Megamind isn't sure how to do. Megamind knows better than to actually act on his trust at this point, at least when it comes to his profession, but Roxanne…with Roxanne, it's different.

All he can do is trust her, act on it, and let himself be afraid, and then maybe someday he won't be afraid anymore. Hopefully, Minion will help him explain. Roxanne did say she would catch him; she said he would know he's safe with her someday. He still feels a warm little glow when he thinks of that, even if it does scare him.

He dresses in yesterday's undersuit and his leathers, but forgoes his gloves, boots, and shoulder array in the hopes that this will possibly facilitate more hugs. His spikes generate a selectively permeable force field and he's loath to abandon them, but…if he's going to have a physical relationship with someone (with! Roxanne! no less!), perhaps a less painful form of protection wouldn't go amiss. He'll think of something. Megamind thinks of all kinds of things when he's giddy with excitement, the way he is now, after his nap, the first really good sleep he's had in months.

Oh, and Roxanne will need armor as well, he thinks, if their relationship (relationship! he has slept and woken twice; this is no dream! he has a relationship with his soulmate!) is to become public. More ideas to think of! He can't wait. He looks at himself in the mirror and slicks his eyebrows down, and he realizes that he has his teeth sunk against his lower lip in a goof-happy grin without any idea when that started.

He can't seem to help it, or school his expression into anything less eager, trembling heart or no.

He thought—he thought everything was ruined. Would be ruined, always. Who he is, what he is, yet again coming around to screw him over. And, this time, coming around to screw over someone he cares about as well. What little his life was worth to him had taken a significant nosedive, but—

—but this is real. He's here in Roxanne's bedroom, with the smell of her sheets on his skin. And not only that, but—

He lifts his chin and brushes his fingertips over one of the fading bruises on his throat, a thrill running through him. It's a shame he heals so quickly, but possibly Roxanne will be willing to give him another of these, soon. Possibly.

He comes out of Roxanne's bedroom to find her on her laptop, leaning back against the armrest of her couch, with one leg curled under her. She's wearing a tattered red hoodie with white lettering on the front, and sweatpants, and socks. Her hair is damp and fluffy, much less sleek than it usually looks; it's naturally quite thick and she must not have dried or styled it after her shower. The little eyeliner remaining is smudged, and she is, without question, the most beautiful woman he has ever seen in his life. He has never seen her so disheveled; the fact that she's letting him see her this way, that she's comfortable with him seeing—so soon after he spurned her and scorned her and they fought and she forgave him—

He is nervous, of course, but he has also not felt so fluttery-light in years. He feels as though he is going to burst with joy.

Megamind moves near-silently in his bare feet, but Roxanne catches his movement and looks over at him. She smiles to see him there, and his heart leaps in his chest, drumming triple-beats against the back of his ribcage.

"Hey," Roxanne says, sitting up and swinging her feet down and waving him over. Megamind catches his breath. "Hey, come sit. I'm chatting with Minion, he reached out on Skype. I didn't know you guys had Skype."

"Hello, Sir!" says Minion's bright little voice, tinny through two sets of speakers as Megamind approaches. "I'm so happy you two worked things out!"

Megamind settles carefully onto the couch next to Roxanne, feeling oddly shy. This is his soulmate. His brilliant, beautiful soulmate, who slept nude and vulnerable on his chest last night and who now appears completely relaxed with him in the room. Happy, even, to have him there.

Sure enough, Roxanne places her laptop on her coffee table and adjusts it a bit, then scoots close to him and puts her feet up on the table beside the little screen. "Okay?" she asks, looking at him, and when he nods, wordless, she smiles again and lounges back and against his side, relaxing.

Megamind feels as though his soul has somehow left his body to turn cartwheels around Roxanne's apartment. He nudges his nose into her fluffy hair, and dares to take her hand. 

When finally he gathers himself enough to look at Minion, the little ichthyoid's eyes are soft.

"I'm so happy," Minion says again, smiling a little bit tremulously, probably because he honestly is happy...but also, he is a piece of Megamind's soul, or Megamind is a piece of his, which may explain why Minion is able to articulate the things that leave Megamind tongue-tied.

 _I'm so happy_.

"So am I," says Megamind, aloud. "You—were right. You were right, Minion."

"I usually am," Minion agrees, a cheerfully wicked glint in his eye. "I keep wondering when you'll learn."

"I am a slow learner, you know this."

Roxanne laughs. "You two," she says fondly. "I've missed seeing you both together."

Pog croaks and flutters up onto Roxanne's lap, and Odile puts her head up and bugles impatiently until Megamind stands and carries her over to sit with the rest of the flock.

"So," Roxanne says, when Odile is finally settled with her neck stretched over Megamind's lap and her head on Roxanne's leg so Roxanne can scratch her head. "So. I had a thought, a few weeks ago. Minion, I sort of mentioned it to you already, but…so, you guys are saltwater, right?"

Megamind cocks his head. "We're…yes. Effectively, yes. We can go either way, but it takes time to switch from salt to fresh, if that's…?"

"No, no, you don't have to change," she assures him. "I asked because I have a friend in Key West—sort of a retired aunt, really, and she keeps saying I should visit. It's the middle of March, now, and the best time to do the Keys is before May, before summer gets going and the crowds get big." She takes a deep breath. "I have four weeks of vacation this year. So if you guys can blackmail and bribe your ways to full pardons within a month...we could go at the end of April. Take a few weeks, see the tropics. Rent a condo or something, maybe rent a boat for a few days—I'll chart the course, figure out the dive sites, everything. What do you think?"

Megamind looks at Minion, who looks terribly excited at this prospect. Megamind can't blame him—the tropics sound amazing. A change of scenery, a breath of fresh air? The chance to see the ocean for the first time in his life? With his brothersoul and his soulmate? After five months of absolute abject misery?

" _Please_ , yes," he blurts, almost without meaning to. "Yes, that sounds fantastic. Splendid. Minion?"

"Yes! Very definitely yes!"

Roxanne beams at them. "Yay," she says. "I'll get us somewhere close to the water, okay?"

"On the water?" Megamind asks, too excited at this prospect to hide it. "Right on the water? Money is no object. You plan it, I'll fund it. I don't care. Okay?"

Roxanne laughs, nodding. "Okay, sure, yeah! I'll get us a house, then, if you're sure about no budget. Would…you be okay with maybe inviting my two old ladies along?" She looks from him to Minion and back again; she sounds uncertain about this part. "They live in the Keys but they aren't actually on the beach; they might like a vacation. And I miss them."

"I'm okay with it if Minion is," Megamind says, after a moment of hesitation. If Roxanne trusts them, then…he can handle it. He'll figure out how to handle it. Besides, how much trouble can two elderly women be?

"Can I think about it? Please?" Minion grimaces. "I'm…not really a people person."

"Absolutely," Roxanne tells him. "Definitely. It's okay if you don't want to."

He wrinkles his face. "I don't," he says, "but…I'm sure it will be fine. Maybe…maybe they could come just for some of the time?"

"Sure," Roxanne says. "Yeah, I like that idea. But you think about it, okay? No need to decide right now. I'll find us a few good options—standalone houses, secluded, neighbors a good solid distance away. On the water. We'll discuss it then, okay?"

"Do those places exist?" Megamind asks. He can't quite believe this; all of the pictures he's seen of tropical beaches have shown shorelines choked with hotels and boardwalks and people.

But Roxanne nods. "If you can afford it, yes," she says dryly. "It'll almost definitely run us over a thousand a night, but—"

Megamind snorts, and Minion says, "Not a problem. We're _supervillains_ , Ma'am! We have more money than we know what to do with, and that's after sinking a healthy chunk into various—"

"I think that's all Miss Ritchi needs to know about our finances," Megamind says, entirely on reflex. Then he catches himself, and grimaces. His soulmates are both laughing at him.

"Hear him! _Oh, no, my future wife is going to find out I donate to charities, oh, the horror_."

"I get no respect," Megamind mumbles, feeling his ears heat—but Roxanne, still laughing, turns in his arms to kiss him, and he cannot help the glow that kindles in his chest at that.

"So," she says, turning back to grin at the computer screen. "I will plan us a nice vacation, and you two will get yourselves whatever you need to in order to be safe and not get arrested."

"Sounds like a plan!" Minion exclaims.

"Good." She takes a deep breath, then carefully places her hand on Megamind's leg, above his knee. "Now, should we discuss, um…living arrangements? I don't know how quickly you two are hoping to take this relationship."

Megamind looks at Minion, but the little fish shakes his head.

So he picks up Roxanne's hand and squeezes it—hesitates—and laces their fingers together. "I have been," he says, telling his fearful heart to shut up and let him talk, "trying to hold myself at bay for five months. Keeping away from you. I'm—tired. I am so very tired of that."

She squeezes his hand, folds her other over the back of it to press his palm reassuringly between both of hers. "So am I," she says. "But…?"

He swallows. "But, but at the same time…this feels. Big. I'm conflicted."

He feels her go just a little bit too still, at that. "Conflicted," she says.

"Not about you! Not—I am so happy," he says quickly, "to know that I was—wrong. About everything. I want—I want you with me." He brings her fingers to his lips and hopes, _prays_ she doesn't take offense to this. "And I—I know it is expected that soulmates merge lives shortly after finding each other. But." He gulps. "But at the same time, I am—still—I don't. I don't know. We are moving quickly. As quickly as I care to move, I think. …Why did that make you relax?"

Roxanne twists in his arms to press an unexpected kiss to the corner of his mouth. "I like my home," she says, smiling at him with relief in her eyes when she pulls away. "I don't want to leave it just yet. I'd be okay either way, which is why I wanted to know what you want. But. I would rather go a little slower than most people do."

All of Megamind's breath exits his body in a rush. "Ohhh, that's so good to hear," he says. "I just, I am okay with—I am _so very okay_ with the—um, the sex, and the—this, what we're doing now, the nice touching—I love this." He feels his ears heat; saying he likes something typically gets him laughed at. Feels embarrassing to say. "But, living together, I don't think I can—do that. Not yet."

"No nosy reporters in Evil Lair?" Roxanne teases. "That's okay. I don't care what's 'expected,' you know that. We can go as slow as you like. I'm just excited to have you."

Minion speaks up. "Sir? Why is Metro Man contacting me about a press conference next week?"

"Ah! That," Megamind says, hauling himself back to the present and out of the I'm-so-lucky fugue that was about to overtake him, "is a whole other conversation. Which we should probably have in person. You should come over. And, and we can…"

"We can talk," Roxanne says, kissing his hand, smiling at Minion. "We can all talk."

* * *

The press conference is an absolute mess. Roxanne goes home angry, Megamind and Minion go home tired and jittery-nervous, and Wayne goes to his soundproofed underground fortress as a giant bundle of shuddering nerves.

(Granted, this is partly because Megamind caught him afterwards and pressed a folded piece of paper into his hand and said in a rush, "I hacked into the records of the Halls of Nested Souls. You were right. Most of the people responsible have passed away at this point, but—and I don't, I don't know how much you want me to tell you, but there's an address on that paper. And a phone number. Digging deeper seemed like a mistake, but I can…um. Do you…want? Names? This is, it's just very…"

Wayne blinked down at the paper. "Do I know any of the people responsible?"

Megamind nodded.

Wayne swallowed. "Was it my parents?"

Megamind hesitated. Slowly shook his head.

Wayne looked at him for a long moment, then sighed and dropped his huge shoulders. And then, very carefully, he reached out and rested one massive hand on Megamind's shoulder.

"Thank you for lying to me, little buddy," he said, with complete sincerity. "You're a good friend.")

All in all, it goes about as well as can be expected when most of the expected questions are of the "are you drugged or have you just lost your mind" variety.

Minion has projects to work on and insists he needs some alone time when they get back to Evil Lair, so Megamind decides to take Roxanne at her word that he is always welcome and go see her. Hopefully she doesn't want to be alone now, too.

She's shouting into the phone when he arrives. Megamind doesn't know if that means he should leave or not, so he hovers nervously outside the balcony door for a long moment, trying to decide. He should...wait? He should wait. Until she's finished. Okay, he can do that. But a minute later Roxanne looks up and sees him standing there, and he sends her a grimacing smile and a small wave without really meaning to.

And Roxanne waves back, then does a sort of circular motion that Megamind isn't sure how to interpret. Come in? She might be beckoning?

He opens the door and slips inside, where Roxanne is still snarling into the phone, _didn't tell you because you were always going to react this way_ , and, _can't you just be happy for me, jesus christ_ , and, _why would I bring either of them to visit in person when being near you is like sandpapering my eyeballs, you can meet them over the phone or not at all_ , and, _maybe we will move to the beach! Maybe we will! What's your point!_

Finally eventually she makes a sound of ugly scorn in her throat and snaps, "Hanging up now, bye."

And then she turns to Megamind and wraps her arms around him, holds him tightly against her chest, and says, "Need to use you as a pillow."

"Oh—okay?"

She presses her open mouth to his shoulder and screams, long and angry, both fists clenched against his back, and then she tucks her face against his neck and makes a small, unhappy noise.

Uncertain, worried, Megamind pats her. He thinks of his uncles, thinks of his own tangled-up feelings, thinks of how to help. He shifts his weight from side to side, swaying gently, wondering if this is a correct thing. Hopefully correct or value-neutral, hopefully not incorrect.

Roxanne lets him do it, sways with him, and just hugs herself onto him barnacle-tight without saying anything for a long few minutes. Finally her fists relax against his back and she heaves a heavy sigh over his throat.

"Thanks," she says. "Thank you, I needed that. I'm sorry you had to hear it."

"That is quite all right, Miss Ritchi," he says, relieved that rocking her appears to have been okay. "I wasn't expecting your parents to like me. I don't mind."

She scoffs again, shakes her head as she straightens and steps back. "It's not about you. You're just the cherry on top of their sundae of bewilderment; they don't know why I do any of what I do. I think their vision when I was growing up was that I'd…I don't know," she waves a hand at nothing, "buy a house down the street from them and always be coming over for dinner with my spouse and two kids and a dog, or something."

Megamind swallows. "I cannot sire children," he says quietly. "If that was something you wanted."

"It's not. If I have kids, they'll be adopted." She pinches the bridge of her nose. "Another thing my parents don't understand. I love them, we just…don't understand each other at all. Sorry. It was just…more of the same bullshit we just covered at the press conference."

Megamind smiles thinly and tugs her to sit down with him on her new sofa, but she shakes her head and pulls away so she can pace. That's okay.

"And man, Wayne was right on the money with that one," she says, bitter. "I'm brainwashed, drugged, or crazy. Pick two, I guess, because apparently _he's my soulmate_ , literally _the_ most common excuse for stuff like this, is suddenly not enough of an explanation! I swear to—and _you!_ " She rounds on him, throws her hands in the air, and Megamind jumps. "How are you just _sitting there?_ How are you not completely pissed? They said you had Odile on drugs, for pete's sake! Why does everyone think you've got your bird on drugs?"

Megamind shrugs. "That's an old one," he says. "I'm used to it. Frankly it was a breath of fresh air just to have someone else up there with me. Roxanne," he says, getting to his feet and coming to stand in front of her. He takes her hands in his, gives her fingers a gentle squeeze. "Roxanne, they'll come around. I can't believe how hard you went off on that guy from Channel 9—I don't think I caught what he said."

Roxanne grinds her teeth. "He implied that you murdered your first soulbird and genetically engineered another one to be compatible with Pog."

Oh. That's a new one. Megamind doesn't like that one.

"We should make bingo cards," he says, to cover this.

She blinks at him, then snorts. "Yeah. Sorry, I just…" She steps forward and drops her forehead to his shoulder. "I can't believe how much crap they threw at you. At us."

Megamind pats her. "Oh, well," he says, "they'll just have to get used to us. In the meantime…we still do have each other. Yes?"

Roxanne lifts her head and looks at him, blue-skinned and wide-eyed and earnest and right in front of her, finally. "Yeah," she says, pulling him into a proper hug, feeling herself go a bit soft for him as he returns the embrace, holding her. "Yeah, we have each other."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand we're done! Not sure when I'll start posting the sequel. Hopefully soon, but it's not as finished as this one was, so. if you've got stuff you want to see these three do at the beach, drop a comment! Might do it, might not, but the suggestion box is open!
> 
> Thank you everyone who came with me on the birds journey. I love you. And if anyone wants to borrow the concept of a birds soulmate AU, please go right ahead. It's a lot of fun <3


End file.
